


As I Lay Dying

by n_nami



Category: Supernatural RPS
Genre: AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-24
Updated: 2012-11-24
Packaged: 2017-11-19 09:59:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 34,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/572060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/n_nami/pseuds/n_nami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blessed and cursed with a gift that makes him see past events tied to the objects he touches, Jensen is a single man in his mid-thirties who is exposed to the worst side of humanity every day. He only sees murders, rapes and suicides everywhere he goes, every day, without being able to do anything about it. His coping mechanism is taking too much pills and drinking a lot of alcohol. Over the course of decades, it has torn him apart to the point of considering suicide on a daily basis.<br/>That is until he has a very special vision of a young man being stabbed in the subway and said man turning towards him, begging Jensen to help him even though Jensen isn't even supposed to be there. Jensen knows he has to find him – with a little help from his friend Misha, an NYPD officer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As I Lay Dying

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning: This story is bloody, depressing and violent. It deals with suicide and heavy substance abuse (alcohol, meds). Mentions of murders, rapes, hate crimes and dark themes in general. No main character death.
> 
> Written for the [spn_reversebang 2012](http://spn_reversebang.livejournal.com/).
> 
> [Art Masterpost](http://smallworld-inc.livejournal.com/22579.html) by [smallworld_inc](http://smallworld_inc.livejournal.com/)

The park is dimly lit by a street lamp a few yards down the path as Jensen heaves a deep sigh. Even at this late hour, New York stays true to its reputation as the city that never sleeps. Life is still buzzing and pulsing through Central Park at 10 p.m., the paths are crowded even though the sun has set over an hour ago. Gravel is scrunching under the feet of people strolling or hurrying by. They're businessmen on their way home after a long day of work, road workers wandering the park to collect the trash that hundreds, maybe thousands of people have brought to the green isle in the middle of one of the biggest cities of the world. There's a homeless guy sitting under a tree just another couple yards away, dozing in the warm autumn night with one hand still on the back of the dog by his side.

It's still somehow peaceful, and Jensen sighs again, wallowing in the fact that no one bothers him here. That he can just sit here by himself without needing to think about anything.

A leaf, autumn-red and dead, falls off the maple tree above him and gently glides down in the warm breeze. It lands in Jensen's lap, and he absent-mindedly picks it up, spins it in his fingers before he drops it to the ground.

Jensen is one of those businessmen on their way home, and he often stops to sit and think, especially when the weather is as warm as it is tonight.

It's one of the few things that not only gives him peace of mind, but helps him stay grounded. Makes him hope that he survives one more day. Hope is a huge word to use, one Jensen doesn't usually use anymore. It never gets better, he knows.

He leans forward and looks down to the ground. An empty bag of hard candy lies there, not yet picked up by the trash collector. A sudden breeze lets it tumble against Jensen's feet, and just as he feared, Jensen finds himself in another vision.

_The bag gets ripped out of the hands of a young, scrawny boy no more than 10 years old and flies to the ground gracelessly. He looks after it in shock, traces the hand that comes up around him to another boy who's standing behind him and who whacked it out of the first boy’s grasp. He's bigger, bulkier, with wider shoulders, and he sneers at the smaller boy. “See, Porter, that's what you get for kissing Mr. Jones' ass. What're you saying, huh, now that he's not here to defend you?”_

_The bully shoves the smaller boy hard, pulls his school bag off his shoulders when he's face-down in the gravel. The calmness with which the boy – Porter – takes it makes Jensen think it's not the first time he’s been treated like this by the other boy. He just looks up and bites his bottom lip. His hands are buried in the gravel, the hard, sharp stones surely digging into his palms and hurting him. But he just waits it out, doesn't say a word._

_The bully snorts out a harsh laugh, teasing him further. “You gonna cry and tell on me, huh? Or are you gonna go running home to your mommy?” He looks at the backpack in his hands before he throws it hard at Porter's head, who goes down with a whine. “Of course you won't, because you're a pussy,” the kid adds and reaches down for the bag of candy, opening it and, after taking a look around and making sure nobody's watching, shoves handfuls of the still-wrapped hard candy first in the back of Porter's slacks, and the rest into his mouth. The bigger boy exerts a lot of force and the poor Porter tries his damndest not to open his mouth, but the bully wins by sheer strength._

Jensen groans as the vision fades.

It still leaves a bad feeling in his gut, the visions always do, but he's had worse.

That's the problem about Central Park. Jensen loves it here, the fact that he can breathe freely in the crisp air under the trees, but there's so much history here. He lost count of how many times he's wandered along the pond and suddenly was overtaken by a vision of a girl getting dragged behind a bush, getting raped by two guys, or of a homeless guy being mugged and stabbed in his sleep.

His gift – yeah, right, gift, more like a fucking _burden_ – started when he was a teenager, out of nowhere. He had managed to hide it from his family, too worried that they would make him see a shrink or think he was nuts. Not like a shrink could do shit about his fucking _gift_.

His first vision happened in a bus, back home in Texas. It was the first day of freshmen year as he took the school bus home from his high school in Richardson. His first ride on a school bus, to be exact. In retrospect, Jensen ponders, it might have been the excitement of the day, combined with puberty kicking in at the time, and whatever else it was that triggered post-cognition.

And without any warning, Jensen saw an angry father enter the nearly empty bus. Fuming with rage and apparent disappointment, the man grabbed his son by the collar of his shirt and slapped him across the cheek. One, two, three times. And hard. Jensen winced with every loud crack of the hand hitting the poor boy's cheek, wanted to shout at the man to stop beating up his kid, but he couldn't move a single muscle in his body. He was glued to the spot where he sat, or rather hovered over the scene. When he came to afterwards and realized that it had never happened, that the bus was still buzzing with the laughter of the other kids sitting around him and not one angry parent in sight, he realized he just had a vision. And it was far from the last one he'd ever have.

It's been like that ever since, only his visions have gradually become more and more violent.

On the best of days, Jensen sees a kid getting hard candy shoved down the back of his pants.

There were others, though. Worse days, way worse. Jensen still remembers his first vision of a murder vividly – the woman, in her early thirties, getting thrown to the ground by a masked attacker. She was dressed in a bright red coat that was probably fashionable in the 80s, her blonde hair permed. The attacker straddled her, ripped the obviously expensive jewelry from her neck and ears and fingers, dropped it into her handbag. She put up a fight, screamed for help, for the police, for anybody, and he kept shutting her up with a knife pressed against her throat. Hissing out one last time that if she wouldn't keep quiet he'd shut her up a different way, and she snapped her mouth shut at that. Next time he shuffled on top of her, searching her pockets for anything worth some money, she tried to kick him in the balls. The attempt went terribly wrong, and in the end, the guy had cut her throat with the sharp knife.

Jensen stood helplessly just a few feet away, invisible to them and unable to help as he watched her bleed out, the blood pulsing out from her slit throat in waves. He saw the light in her eyes dim, her eyelids falling shut while the thief ran away as fast as he could.

When he had come back to reality, the first thing he did was pour himself a glass of scotch out of his father's liquor cabinet. He had only been 17 then. And he felt like someone had just thrown him into a grinder and left him broken and beat-up. To say Jensen felt like shit was the understatement of the year.

But that vision also made another rule of his gift clear – he never knew when these things had happened. He was never able to help the police to find the criminals.

Snorting out a bitter laugh, Jensen pushes himself to his feet to wander the few remaining blocks to his apartment on the Upper West Side. He could always take the subway, but that is another part that makes his life, especially in New York, increasingly difficult. Almost every handle, every seat in the subway is tainted with one bad memory or the other, and Jensen has seen enough of it. Teenagers beating up a grown-up, but helpless, man. A masked, bulky guy closing his hand around the throat of a middle-aged woman, so she's unable to scream as he rips her purse from her hands. A kid getting his head whacked against a bar by some bullies so they can rip off his school bag and scatter its content all over the carriage.

So, if he has the time, he takes the hour home from work by foot instead of the subway. He walks up the straight line of 8th Avenue to Central Park West, hanging a left on 90th, eyes staring into space and unfocused, absently setting one foot in front of the other. The people he passes by mostly don't look at him, as if he wasn't there at all. Just like in his visions.

In the distance, Jensen can make out the lights of New Jersey, blinking over the Hudson River. However, New York's own street lamps and the bright lit windows of the skyscrapers are too bright to see anything but a hazy blur on the other side.

Jensen is usually not a very sociable person. He prefers to wallow in the solitude of his flat, but right now, he feels like he never has been lonelier.

The weight on his shoulders drags him down, and the familiar clench to his gut does nothing to lessen his misery. He can't even pinpoint what it is that crushes down on him with so much force – the fact that he hadn't had any serious emotional relationship ever, the fact that it looks like that won't change anytime soon, or the fact that he's still walking the streets here and not just jumping off a bridge into the East River and hoping that they just let him drown.

He really needs a drink.

With another heavy sigh, Jensen turns the corner into West End Avenue, manages the last few steps to his house. Not technically his house, he just owns a condo on the second floor. Jensen drags his feet tiredly up the stairs to the front door, and even unlocking it and making it up to his apartment seems like too much effort.

He could always head back. The Hudson is not far away. Neither is the East River.

But then again, there's a chance he survives the jump and is dragged from the water just to have to tell his parents and siblings what and why it happened.

Not that they know shit about Jensen's life. What could he possibly tell him when they call, from back home in Texas? That it takes every ounce of willpower he has to not end this endless downward spiral with a bullet through his head? Yeah, right, because that's what you tell your Mom on her Sunday call.

There are only a few things and a few people that still make Jensen carry on. His family is one of them, even if they're far away.

The first thing he does once he lets himself into his apartment is head for the bedroom. There's a bottle of Jack still on his bedside table, still more than half full – and isn't that just ironic – and Jensen plans on draining it tonight. Otherwise he won't be able to sleep his usual fitful three hours.

He doesn't switch on the light before he flops down on the desk chair, the bottle of bourbon already tipped up against his lips and taking a few generous drags. The burn of the alcohol down his throat is familiar, and brings him back to reality with a sudden rush. Coughing, Jensen puts the bottle onto the desktop.

Out of habit, Jensen then opens the top drawer of his desk, slides it all the way out and reaches for the object hidden underneath the papers. Cold, solid metal meets his fingers as they wrap around the handle, and a breath, strained and heavy, leaves Jensen as he lifts it. Weighs it in his hands, opens the magazine. It's a classic revolver, a Colt, given to him by his Dad when he moved to New York years ago. Jensen can still hear his voice in his head. _“Gotta be able to protect yourself, son. It's a dangerous city.”_

The city, though, has never been cruel to Jensen in any way.

Hell, if anyone saw him now, playing with the loaded magazine of the revolver, pondering to use it against the only and yet most powerful enemy he has ever faced – himself – he would probably get laughed at.

After all, he's got all a man can dream of. A degree in journalism with a portfolio so good that the New York Times hired him right out college. Chief editor of the city desk, and an occasional contributor to the op-ed section, known for his sharp, detailed choice of words and ruthless argumentation. Soon after his promotion from beat reporter to section chief, he was able to buy this apartment for himself.

The gun still waits in his desk every night when he comes home, waits for him to take it out and consider sticking it into his mouth deep against the back of his hard palette, and pull the trigger.

Jensen lets the magazine, six rounds of deadly metal, snap back into the gun.

Then he pulls back the hammer.

A low, soft meow makes him blink and snap. The brush of soft fur against his leg, circling it, a small paw coming up to rest against his shin. Like he's poking Jensen, asking what the fuck he's doing here.

Jensen huffs out a breath and lowers the gun, carefully moves the hammer back into its safety position. After putting the gun back into the drawer and closing it, Jensen picks up the cat.

“Hey, buddy,” he says weakly, notices how his voice breaks on the second word.

Deep green eyes watch him innocently, a tongue poking out to lick over tiny, sharp teeth. Jensen pets him, his hand running gently from the cat's head down his back and along his tail.

He has lost count of how many times Freckles has pulled him out his plans to commit suicide like this.

Jensen lets him curl up in his lap, but never stops caressing his soft, white fur. Freckles begins to purr in pleasure, and responds by driving his claws into Jensen's jeans, again and again.

Truth be told, if it wasn't for his furry companion, he would've long since been dead.

Misha named the cat and gave it to him nine years ago, shortly after they met. He probably already knew why back then, even if he didn't find out about the visions until a few months later.

Jensen takes another deep drag from the bottle, rests it against his thigh instead of placing it on the desktop. The alcohol already burns a little less on its way down to his stomach, and Jensen feels warmth spreading in his guts. He isn't hungry. He never is these days.

Yesterday, he had watched as a woman in her mid-twenties sprang from a bridge because her husband had left her. All the while, her younger sister was yelling at her from the other side of the railing, begging her with tears streaming down her face to not do it. Cried out that she was young and still had everything to live for. The woman shook her head at her sister, whispered “Sorry,” and let go, falling back towards the dark, cold waves of the East River. Jensen's vision was long enough for him to see how her head hit the socket of the bridge pier hard, bones cracking and blood spluttering everywhere before she was swallowed by the water.

Another few gulps of Jack.

How is he supposed to live like this? Why has he got such a useless, horrible gift? For what? And why him? Jensen has given up on getting an answer to these questions long ago.

Life is a bitch, that's the point. Life is cruel and painful. And people... people are the worst. After a good two decades of seeing people murder and mug and rape each other, Jensen has long since lost his belief in humanity. People disgust him. He doesn't want to have anything to do with anybody.

A look at his watch tells him it's already past 1 a.m. The bottle in his hands is almost empty and Freckles is still purring in his lap.

Jensen's mind spirals in the always similar musings of what-ifs. What if he grew up like a normal teenager? Sure, he would've still been the weird kid in high school that nobody talked to. But at least he'd have a life now. A happy life. Maybe even a boyfriend.

But Jensen's few trial runs at that have all failed spectacularly. He always tried to distance himself, so he wouldn't take down anyone with him. He never really got involved in a relationship, which doesn't mean he never made any effort in building up the relationship – he was just very careful about hiding the darker side of his life. More often than not, his potential boyfriends accused him of not trusting them, and every abortive pairing ended in yelling and fights and breaking up for good.

He also never dared to break the news of how much of a mental case he actually was to anybody - except for Misha, that is, but then again, Misha had more or less found out about it on his own. Anyone else had just wondered, sooner or later, why Jensen didn't want to take the subway to the mall or tensed in his seat at the cinema and spaced out for a minute, unresponsive to any words or shaking against his shoulder. A few freaked out and left him immediately, while another two or three actually kept pressing on, urging him to tell them. With the best intentions, of course. They all wanted to help him.

But Jensen was never brave or stupid enough to tell them the true reason. Tell them about the horrors he has to face every day.

What could they probably say? “Oh god, that's horrible, you poor guy-”? Jensen snorts out a bitter laugh. Yeah, because that sure helps a lot.

And there is no way a shrink could help him. Medication maybe? Right. Because he isn't already taking sleeping pills and painkillers like other people eat Skittles.

The nightmares also never stop, and while they never manage to get as realistic as his visions already are, they are still driving him crazy. He wakes up every night, despite taking more than twice the recommended dose of sleeping pills, drenched in sweat, panting desperately and trying to get that sensation off his chest that feels like a ton of bricks trying to crush his ribcage underneath.

Sometimes, it ends in a panic attack.

Jensen read a couple books about them as soon as he realized the nature of these attacks and is able to calm himself down, but it's often an hour-long process, and by the time he can breathe regularly again, it's morning. He drags his ass to work and writes dark columns about people and the world being horrible and corrupt or whatever is on his mind. And for some reason, the readers eat it up, demand even more.

Which is the only reason why he is still in this position, and he's lucky that he's apparently so talented. That's another point: If it wasn't for his work, he would've given up years ago. At least he manages to go to work every day, where he can put on the mask and play the role of the grumpy chief editor of his section. His inferiors respect him for his professionalism.

Outwardly, he can be the person they see.

Inside, he feels like crap.

Jensen usually keeps his drinking to the evening, when he's alone. He doesn't like people seeing him drink, it raises uncomfortable questions.

His bottle is empty.

Jensen rummages in the heap under the desk, because he's pretty sure that there's a bottle of vodka still around, and finds it after a few seconds.

Freckles meows unamused and snuggles his head against Jensen's belly.

It's Freckles and work and his family that keep him going. But his family is far away from here, living across the country. Freckles is the only one Jensen has got at the moment. And his parents... he just doesn't want to disappoint them for some reason. When he came out to them, they had a hard time adjusting to it, but eventually settled with the fact that Jensen would never give them grandchildren. Even their frequent inquiries about his love life, about a potential boyfriend, stopped after Jensen brushed them off every single time they asked. But his parents are still his parents. He is a family man, after all, even though he'll never have one of his own. He could never hurt his parents like that. They would be devastated would he kill himself. But, god, does he want to. He just wants it to be over. All of it.

If this is what his life is and always will be, then there's no need to drag anyone else down with him. Jensen can do this alone, doesn't need anyone, or so he tells himself. Outside of his workplace, he likes to keep conversation to a minimum anyway. He rather has his drink here, at home, instead of going to some bar to seem like your average alcoholic who fails at life in general and social contacts specifically.

And as long as he's at home, no one notices when he has a vision.

Although that rarely happens anymore these days, not in this apartment. Jensen bought the flat right after the house was completely renovated. There is little to no history to this apartment. Jensen checked who had lived here before – an old lady, alone, for the past 40 years – and had walked through the flat and found no unpleasant visions. Visions happen a lot on first visits, but Jensen also knows for a fact that they are never older than 1978, the year he was born.

The furniture and all the objects are without exceptions entirely new. Jensen bought them himself, made sure to touch them and check if there was anything bad coming along with them. The worst he got so far was the picture of a worker cutting his thumb on the carton box while wrapping it.

And isn't that something to get nightmares of.

Faking a smile, Jensen drinks the vodka straight from the bottle in long gulps. He knows his thoughts are circling again, knows this always leads to exactly nothing except more of his damn self-pity. Solution is a word his vocabulary doesn't include anymore.

His solution at the moment is alcohol, spending long nights on the internet just wasting time, and drag his ass to bed in the early morning. Yet, he always wakes up long before his alarm clock goes off.

Jensen lifts his hand from where he has absent-mindedly caressed Freckles' fur, and the cat meows in protest. All Jensen intended to do, though, was push the power button of his laptop, and after his hand settles back onto Freckles' neck, he resumes purring. His weight in Jensen's lap is comforting, as is the body heat seeping through Jensen's jeans.

Who would care for poor Freckles if he shot himself?

Misha would probably take him in, but... yeah, Misha would be pretty upset, too.

Mostly, Misha is the other only thing that still keeps him going.

Jensen opens his browser and starts idly rolling and skipping through news sites, checks his e-mail, does everything and nothing. Normal guys his age would watch porn, but Jensen hasn't had anything resembling something like libido in years. He couldn't even remember the last time he had jerked off, even if that still isn't as far away as the time he last got laid.

For a while, he had tried. Whenever he was riled up enough, Jensen would go out, pick some guy up at a gay bar, bring him back to his place and after a rough, impersonal fuck, he'd throw him out even before breakfast. If the sex had been good, he'd even call him a cab. But that was it. Practically a summary of his love life for the past ten years.

Jensen feels like a pathetic loser. And all just because of his curse.

When he looks at the clock for the next time, it's 2 a.m. Jensen sighs relieved. At least half the night is already taken care of. Freckles fell asleep on his lap an hour ago, wasn't even disturbed when Jensen put the empty bottle of vodka aside. Deciding that he'll try to sleep, Jensen gently lifts him from his lap and carries him over to his bed. The cat likes to sleep on top of the sheets at night, and Freckles is barely awake when Jensen puts him down. Just curls in on himself and falls back asleep.

For Jensen, it isn't so easy. Sighing again, he pops the button on his jeans and steps out of them. He feels pleasantly buzzed, the thrumming of the alcohol in his veins just right and making the world spin a little bit. After a short stop in the bathroom to take a leak and throw some sleeping pills into the mix of vodka and Jack, Jensen puts on some pajama bottoms and settles under the covers. Lies on his back and knows he won't sleep for the next hour, but if he wants to sleep at all, this is how it's gonna be.

His mind still races, minutes dragging by without Jensen noticing. The restlessness tugs at every muscle of his body, hurts almost physically, and it takes Jensen several breathing exercises to calm down and doze off.

He dreams of the woman on the bridge, her sister crying on the railing. After that, it's a blur, but the dream still remains vivid, unsettling.

Two hours later, Jensen shoots up into a sitting position, sweat dripping from his forehead, gasping for air. His chest feels constricted and anxiousness rises up. Its familiarity should shock him, but he's indeed so used to all that that he just tells himself to breathe slowly. And it works, at least a bit.

He lays down and simply rests after that. Knowing that he won't be able to fall asleep again, Jensen stares into space.

His life is useless. Completely and utterly useless. And a pain in the ass.

And despite how hard it hits him, Jensen is too emotionally drained and numbed that he can't even cry at this any more. That phase is over. In his mid-twenties, he had a couple of years where he cried himself to sleep like a little kid, trying desperately to make the visions and the imprint they left on his brain go away and just got to sleep.

But now, at age 34, he knows it's pointless.

At 5 o'clock, Jensen is almost glad that he can finally get up. It's still an hour before his alarm goes off, but he uses the time to change into sweatpants and an old, threadbare t-shirt to run a few rounds around the block. Pounding the pavement at least helps him getting his head clear.

His breakfast, as per usual, are painkillers against the hangover headache, washed down with two Alka-Seltzer in a glass of water. After a brief shower, Jensen dresses for work and downs his first cup of coffee in the kitchen. He finds a text on his phone as he sits at the kitchen isle. It's from Misha.

'Pick you up at 8?' it says.

A look at his clock tells him that the message has been sent just five minutes ago, and fires off a short 'Sure' before taking another sip of coffee.

He fills the thermos jug with the remaining coffee from the pot and takes it down to the street. Waiting at the side of the street is rarely a good idea, but before rush hour starts it's mostly bearable. With a weary sigh, Jensen leans against the lamp post in front of the house he's living in.

When a red, beat-up pick-up truck drives by, Jensen feels the back of his skull buzzing and immediately knows that a vision is coming. He barely has enough time to clutch his hand around the lamp post to keep standing.

_A little boy, wearing a blue Superman t-shirt and jeans, playing on the sidewalk. Jensen already can guess where this is heading, but visions with children are just the worst. This boy is barely three years old. And he has a red ball in his hands, bounces it off the sidewalk as he jumps down the street, singing and mumbling under his breath and totally engrossed in a game only he knows._

_The ball hits a packet of cigarettes on the path and rolls sideways, onto the street. The little boy runs after it so fast that the mother, walking a few feet behind him, only gets to shout out: “Mikey! No!” before it's too late._

_The red pick-up truck, shiny and new at the time, rushes past and hits the small child dead-on with the left side of the hood. The impact is so heavy that Mikey flies across the street, already leaving a trail of blood on the pavement, and hits the edge of the sidewalk head first. The tiny skull shatters to pieces, blood and parts of his insides splattering on the sidewalk, and Jensen can only watch as the mother runs over and breaks down into tears. Uncontrollable sobs shake her body. Jensen feels himself shaken, too, sympathy for the poor woman who just lost her son clenching his heart painfully. A young life, wasted. This boy will never see his future, will never go to college, will never meet a man or woman and have a family-_

Luckily, the picture starts to blur and morph back into reality. When Jensen blinks, it's Misha who stands in front of him. “Jensen?” he says softly, shaking his shoulder. “Are you with me?”

“Yeah,” Jensen croaks out.

“Was it that horrible this time?” he asks.

Jensen just presses a hand to his mouth in disgust. He feels sick to his stomach and knows it has nothing to do with the meds and the remaining alcohol in his system. “Is watching a 3-year-old get hit by a car and seeing his brains splatter all over the sidewalk enough for you?!” he asks back, harsher than intended.

Misha's brows draw together as he eyes Jensen carefully. “If I remember that correctly, the guy who ran over a little boy here in... was it 1993? Somewhere around that – The guy was arrested and did several years in prison for vehicular manslaughter. If that helps any.” The hand on Jensen's shoulder tightens, pats him encouragingly, and it helps enough to make him snap out of it. Getting lost in these kinds of visions is too easy.

“Thanks for picking me up,” Jensen says instead of going into detail. Truth is, he is relieved every time Misha can take him to work or back, because that means he doesn't need to take the subway.

“No problem,” Misha nods. “I hate to break it to you, though, that I'll have to work very late today and won't be able to take you home, too.”

Jensen swallows. He can do this. He totally can. “No problem,” he manages. And with that, he slumps into the passenger seat of Misha's police car, a turmoil of feelings still clenching his guts.

“Hey, you wanna stop by for dinner on Friday?” Misha asks, smiling lopsided at him.

“Yeah, sure,” Jensen shrugs. It's no use to decline any such offer from Misha. The guy knows him better than anyone and if it wasn't for him, Jensen would spend his evenings alone and sulking in his apartment anyway. Misha is the only one that drags him out so he at least gets to socialize with him and his lovely wife. Jensen doesn't know how much of it all Vicky actually knows, but he trusts her like he trusts Misha.

There have also been occasions where he totally refused to take only one step out of his home, and he ended up with Misha on his doorstep, pizza and beer in hand and not taking no for an answer. So if Misha asks him to come over for dinner, he better say yes and show up.

Truth be told, Misha is without doubt the best -- and only -- friend he's ever had.

When he glances sideways as Misha stops at a red traffic light, Jensen catches Misha's look. His brows are furrowed in worry, big blue eyes watching him carefully and with so much sympathy swirling in them that Jensen knows, without any words, that Misha understands. His best friend is an NYPD officer, after all. And the things you see as a NYPD officer are the aftermath of the stuff Jensen sees every day. So.

Misha understands, and the thought makes Jensen's lips curl up slightly.

When the dark-haired man obviously notices what's going on, he punches Jensen lightly on the shoulder. Says, “It's okay.”

“Is it ever?” Jensen replies with a bitter undertone.

Misha doesn't answer.

The day is as horrible as any. At least he doesn't have a vision at work today. However, it doesn't spare Jensen a massive headache on his way home from work.

And he has to take the subway. Great, just great.

As soon as the train rolls into the station, Jensen does his approved breathing exercises. Calms himself down enough so he doesn't lose his mind in there. When the doors open, Jensen is waiting in the first row and heads for a seat immediately after the few waiting people have gotten off the train. Seats have one major advantage – you don't have to touch a bar or handle in order to not fall over. Any bar that someone may have had his head whacked against. Any handle that someone may have held on to as a pickpocket kicked him in the nuts. Really, almost everything in a subway brings up the most horrible visions.

Jensen sits down on the bench without touching anything and lets out a relieved breath. Lifting the paper cup from where it rests against his thigh, he takes a mouthful of the delicious, black coffee, closes his eyes, and just enjoys the burn down his throat.

People start to fill up the car, a father and his little daughter taking a seat to Jensen's right, a young girl to his left texting on her cell phone. A guy in his twenties stands a few feet away, holding onto a bar with one hand, the other one clutched around the handle of a plastic bag with carry-out in it.

Jensen has developed a habit of watching people. First, because he expects the worst, expects for something bad to happen any second. Second, because he naturally has seen a lot happen to people, so he often wonders what their story might be. He's sure that the second reason is kind of a quirk of his profession. And his gift.

For example, the girl beside him has probably just started college and is on her way to a date. She's wearing nice clothes; not the kind you wear to a job interview, but the kind that make her seem like a good catch. And she's texting her date with to let them know she's on her way.

However, when Jensen looks at her from the corner of his eye again, he sees that she isn't smiling. And that just doesn't fit into his theory. It's only 5 p.m., and Jensen had the luck to get off work early today. By the bitter lines around her mouth that Jensen notices just now, he guesses the date didn't go like she expected. Maybe the guy stood her up? And now she's texting her best friend to break the news to her, frustrated and disappointed. Jensen quickly averts his eyes.

There's a guy standing in the large empty space right in front of the door, one hand wrapped around the bar in the middle, the other hand clutched around his commuter bag, holding it close to his body. He's very tall, probably even taller than Jensen, and has half-long brown hair. Jensen can't make out his face from this angle, though. Maybe the guy is on his way home to his family after work, taking his laptop because he's one of those workaholics that work on their project until late at night, when the kids are in bed. And while people with commuter bags that possibly contain a laptop are pretty common in the NYC subway, it's still kind of risky. A potential thief sees a bag like that and knows immediately that there's probably something valuable worth committing a crime in a public place.

The little girl beside him talks endlessly to her dad, and Jensen shifts his attention to her. Apparently, they've been to the zoo today, so there isn't much to guess for Jensen here. She coos over a stuffed animal in her lap, a hippo with an oversized head. Something about the man's behavior towards his daughter makes Jensen think twice. The father's smile is wide, truly happy, but his brows are knit a bit too tight together. He seems kind of rueful, hearing his daughter ramble like this. Like he wouldn't see or hear that very often.

“Thank you, Daddy!” she says then, throwing her arms around his neck.

“You're welcome, princess,” he replies quietly, holding her tight for a moment. Jensen still gets a glimpse of his face over her shoulder, and he gets it. Obviously a divorced father, and his daughter lives with her mother – he doesn't get to see her very often, and when he does, he tries to do everything for her. Taking her to the zoo, for example, and buying her the stuffed animal she wants so much. Showering her with all the affection he isn't allowed to when the child's mother is around, because she constantly tells her daughter that her father is a selfish bastard. Or something like that.

Even here - a father and his daughter taking the subway home from the zoo - there's a sad story lying underneath the surface.

Jensen sighs and looks around the crowd to see if he can read anybody else.

Thinking about things like these helps Jensen focus on something else than his visions. It's a neat trick that has helped him through a lot of subway rides already, even if he mostly comes to a dark end with these musings.

Suddenly, the train brakes violently in the middle of the tunnel, sending the passengers lunging sideways and holding on to the nearest bar or handle. On instinct, Jensen grabs the arm rest of the seat, and doesn't get that warning buzz he often feels before a vision when it actually starts.

_It's a subway train. Of course it's a subway train. It's almost completely empty, just like it almost always is in Jensen's visions. The vision gets surprisingly clear within a split second, and Jensen sees him._

_A guy is lying on the floor, three men with their hoods pulled into their faces crowding around him. His eyes stare at them in disbelief, pupils blown open wide, his lips parted and gulping in as much air as he can. Jensen studies him, is pretty sure he's maybe 29 or barely 30. The first thing Jensen notices after his face – slanted eyes, chiseled features, full lips, laughing lines around eyes and mouth – is the blood dripping from his side. He presses his right palm tightly onto it, trying desperately to stop the blood flow. His hands are large and smeared with blood._

_One of the three muggers picks up the commuter bag that had dropped to the floor beside the barely conscious man. “See, that's what you get for not giving it to us in the first place,” he sneers. The guy beside him lifts the butterfly knife once more, and Jensen holds his breath, expecting him to make the final cut to the poor man's throat._

_Great. He's witness to yet another murder._

_Instead, the mugger just wipes the knife's blade clean on the man's shirt. Jensen barely has time to focus on anything beside the man on the floor. The train starts to slow down as it approaches the next station._

_And that's when something happens to Jensen that hasn't happened in all of his 34 years._

_The man in the puddle of red blood on the floor turns his head and looks right at him. Sees him and looks him right in the eye, although Jensen isn't even supposed to be there. Coughs and says, “Please help me. Call 911. P-please, Sir!”_

_And Jensen just stares, is unable to move just like in any other vision. But he wants to reach out to the man, wants to help him, wants to hold him and tell him everything's gonna be alright. The urge is overwhelmingly intense, more than any other of his visions have been during the past years. He wants to cry out, wants to shout for help, for somebody to help this unfortunate man. It's tearing at him, punching him right in the chest, his heart hammering in a pace that can't be healthy._

_But he's helpless, can't do anything._

_“Who the hell is he talking to?” one of the muggers says._

_“There's no one here to help you, buddy,” the one with the commuter bag says, and kicks the man on the floor for emphasis._

_He winces in pain, presses his mouth shut in order to not scream. It hurts Jensen almost as much as he sees how much he's suffering, but he can't do anything. He's frozen. Like always._

_The train stops at the station, and the three guys are jumping off the train and run as fast as they can. Jensen couldn't even make out their faces._

_Normally, his visions stop right then._

_This time, though, the man on the floor still looks up to him, locks eyes with Jensen as he presses both hands onto the open wound on his side. “Why aren't you helping me? Please...” he whispers, desperation and pain written all over his face, eyebrows drawn together as he tries to suppress another pained groan._

_Jensen wants to shout, wants to ask him for his name, wants to ask where he is. But he can't move, and somehow he's never felt worse in one of his visions. The train isn't moving any more, and it's completely empty now. Only the man bleeding to death at Jensen's feet is here, and as much as Jensen looks around, he can't find anyone else, not even on the platform beside them. When his eyes travel down again, the man stares at the ceiling, barely breathing. His keys have dropped out of his bag and are lying next to his head._

The train brakes again, and Jensen is thrown back into the present.

He blinks into the neon light above the seat row opposite of the car, focusing back on what just happened. What surprises him is how, for the first time ever, he wants to know more about the situation he just witnessed.

Something about this vision was very, very off. Not only that for the first time, someone could actually see him during one of those visions. There has to be something else going on.

Energy is pulsing through Jensen's veins, making his heart pump way too fast and his head ache is long forgotten.

He doesn't know who this guy was, doesn't know his name or where he's living. He doesn't know if he was stabbed yesterday or in 1985. But he knows that he has to do something.

He will find this man.

Who is he and why the hell could he see Jensen?

He gets off the train at the next station, which is the nearest one to his house anyway. As soon as he's out of the subway train, Jensen takes his cell phone out of his pocket and calls Misha. It seems like an eternity to Jensen as he can barely stop fidgeting until Misha eventually picks up at the third ring.

“Jen-?”

“Mish, I need your help,” he bursts out even before Misha can say anything else. “I just saw, you know, in one of my visions, there was a man and he-”

“Jen-”

“- he spoke to me! Can you... I mean how does this work, I can't-”

“ _Jensen!_ ” Misha raises his voice and effectively silences Jensen's incoherent rambling. “First, you're gonna calm down, and then you're gonna tell me where you are. I'm on patrol, so I'm gonna pick you up, and we'll talk about this in a place where there aren't a dozen people probably overhearing you, okay?”

Jensen swallows and takes a deep breath. He knows Misha is right. “Okay. I'm at the 86th street subway station. Right beside the entrance.”

“Good. I'm on my way. You stay there, okay? Give me five minutes.”

With that, Misha hangs up on him, not accepting any argument.

The next five minutes are the five cruelest minutes of Jensen's life. He steps from one foot onto the other, nervous and a split second away from climbing the walls. It's driving him nuts, urging him on to _do something_. If Jensen just knew what the hell is going on.

 _Breathe_ , he tells himself.

Suddenly, Jensen smiles. Smiles to himself like he hasn't in months, and realizes it right this second.

He hasn't felt so _alive_ in a long time.

True to his word, Misha shows up just in time, and Jensen hops into the passenger seat without further ado. “Hey,” Misha greets him with a short wave and puts the car into park. “So. The whole story, and please begin at – you know - the _beginning_.”

Jensen nods, concentrates, and says, “I've just had a vision where a guy was talking to me.”

Misha's eyebrows shoot upwards. “Well. That's a new one. Are you sure he was talking to you?”

“He was looking _right at me_ , Mish. Like, making eye contact and all,” Jensen exclaims, and he knows he's a bundle of nerves right now, but- well, but. Something very special has just happened, and a part of Jensen knows it means something. And he _has_ to find out about this. He _has_ to. “And apart from that, this vision was totally different from the usual. It was way longer, and it was very clear, you know?” Jensen gestures wildly towards his friend as he tries to explain.

“Woah,” Misha replies, waving Jensen's hands away from him. “I think I haven't ever seen you this excited.” And he's grinning.

And Jensen, oddly enough, finds himself smiling in return before he looks down into his lap. “I don't know, man. Apart from the whole talking and looking at me, something about this vision was just special. I need to find out who this guy is. I need to, you know. I want to know why he could see me.”

“So, do you think he's still alive?” Misha asks. “It wasn't a vision of a murder?”

“I don't know,” Jensen answers, picking on a piece of fluff on his jeans. “No, not really. But... okay, from the beginning - I was in the subway, right? And when I had to hold onto the arm rest, the vision started. The guy was mugged by three guys who stole his commuter bag. He was already laying on the floor when the vision started, and he had a stab wound on his upper right side. Apparently, the three guys had threatened him beforehand to give them the bag, and when he refused, they stabbed him. And then he looked right at me and begged me to help him, to call 911. Asked why I didn't do anything. The muggers just looked at him and were like 'What the hell, who are you talking to?'”

Misha nods along to Jensen's summary. “And what makes you think this one was special? Apart from the fact that he talked to you?”

“He _begged_ me to help him, and I _want_ to. I just want to find out who he is. Not that I could prevent anything if this already happened, but I want to meet him. If he survived, that is.”

“Okay,” Misha says, looking out of the windshield. “So, think about your surroundings in the vision.” They have done this a few times before, recreating the vision so that Misha could find out and tell Jensen what happened to the victim.

“The subway. Also the subway station at the end,” Jensen says.

“Did you recognize the station?”

“No, not exactly,” Jensen answers, rubs his thumb over his right temple. “But I didn't exactly try to. I saw it very clear, though. It was... wait, I think there was a sign. Not an underground station, so it has to be a bit out of Manhattan. Uhm, black posts holding up a wooden roof. It's-”

And suddenly, it's like scales fall from Jensen's eyes. “Misha, I know this station. It was the Van Cortlandt Park station, the subway's termination.”

“Good. So, what were they wearing? Anything 90s-ish?”

Jensen shakes his head. “No, pretty up-to-date. The victim wore a... uhm, gray cardigan? Very hipster-like? And a black t-shirt underneath. And jeans. I'd say very current clothes.”

“Anything else?” Misha urges on. “Movie posters, an iPhone 5?”

“Uhm, his car keys lay beside his head. Simple Ford keys, not one of those new key cards, but they looked pretty old and beat-up, like from an old car and he carried them around for quite some time. He didn't have an iPhone, but I saw one of those really big, new smart phones fall out of his pocket. I guess it couldn't have happened too long ago. No movie posters, though.”

Jensen presses his eyes shut, focuses again on the situation he's been in. He remembers a red dot in the background, from where he had looked around to search for anyone who could help. Some kind of advertisement for a new drug.

And that one he recognized.

With renewed excitement, Jensen turns in his seat to fully face Misha. This is huge. Adrenaline rushes through him in waves by now.

“There was an ad in the subway,” he says as calmly as possible. “And I know that one. The campaign has only started today and we had to put it in tomorrow's paper. We just talked about it today in the editor's conference, because we didn't find a large enough space in the layout to fit it in.”

Misha opens his mouth, wants to answer, but suddenly his eyes widen. “Wait a minute,” he finally manages, “So it happened _today_?”

“Apparently,” Jensen nods vividly. “That's a new one, too.”

“So, this morning? I haven't heard of anything of any mugging and a guy being stabbed today. And I was on patrol, so I would definitely have heard of it,” Misha ponders out loud.

They have double-checked enough times to know that Jensen's visions are always true. Their eyes meet, Misha leaning his head sideways against the headrest of the seat while Jensen leans a bit forward, hands clenching and fingers rubbing against palms.

“No, not morning. It was definitely dim outside when the train reached the station... like just right after sunset. A red sunset.”

They look at each other for a moment, both realizing what that means. The penny drops at the same time, both men turning their heads to look at the sky through the windshield. The sun has barely touched the horizon yet.

It's not sunset. Yet.

“You saw...” Misha says, nonplussed and amazed, and stares into space.

“Yeah, the friggin' _future_. The maybe very near future. Shit. But it could happen anytime, right? So what do we do?” Jensen asks, panic rising up in his chest.

Misha bites his lip, thinks about it.

It's the first time ever that Jensen could maybe, actually help someone, and for the first time ever, Jensen feels like his gift is actually of _use_. The feeling is maddeningly good. But he can't deal with this at the moment, just feels overwhelmed and has yet again do a few breathing exercises to calm down.

Jensen closes his eyes, focuses on deep, even breaths.

The man of his vision appears again. Slanted, blue-green eyes, deliciously curved lips pressed together in pain. Half-long, brown hair. Jensen remembers his body on the floor, slender and muscled, obviously very tall. The commuter bag lays-

The commuter bag.

Half-long, brown hair.

“ _Fuck!_ ” Jensen curses loudly.

“What?”

“I've seen this guy. He was on the same train that I took when I came here. If he hasn't gotten off that subway, he's right on his way to Van Cortlandt Park.”

“Are you sure?” Misha asks, shocked.

“Pretty sure, yes,” Jensen confirms.

Without hesitation, Misha grabs the mobile radio from his belt. “This is Collins, ID 8-4-0-7-9. I’ve gotten a report of a mugging on the 1 train northbound to Van Cortlandt Park, taking place right now. The perps are three young men. They could have stabbed a man and left him to die on the subway.”

It's risky, and they both know it, and it'll be hard to explain, but it's also the only thing they can do right now. They're too far away to drive there themselves. Jensen makes a quick mental calculation after a short look at his wrist watch - the train will arrive at the termination within the next five minutes.

“Confirmed. Two patrol cars on their way,” the man on the radio says.

Jensen lets out a relieved breath. “So. What do we do now?” he asks.

“We're driving to the police station and wait for the news.”

With that, Misha puts the car in gear and drives out onto the street, siren and lights on.

By the time they reach the police station, Jensen is even more riled up than before. No further information came in on the radio while they drove here, and despite the fact that it took them barely ten minutes, Jensen almost lost his nerve every few seconds.

He runs the situation through his head for the umpteenth time. What if it had been further in the future? What if it wasn't happening today, but tomorrow? Misha sure was in trouble if he made them order two patrol cars to the station and then nothing had happened there.

What if the stabbing would be tomorrow, and he won't see the guy in the subway again to warn him? He'll run right into them, and the police won't be there tomorrow and it'll still end up like in Jensen's vision. And that would make it officially the most horrible vision he's ever had. He would be responsible for this guy's _death_. Jensen is so unable to deal with that in his current state of mind.

“Relax, it'll be fine,” Misha says and pats Jensen's shoulder as they enter the police station from the subterranean garage.

Jensen just groans, because he knows Misha is as unsure as he is. His best friend just doesn't loose it like Jensen right now; maybe because he's a trained police officer, for crying out loud. It's kind of his job to keep a crisis under control, even if it's just Jensen freaking out here.

They take the elevator up to the ground floor, and the second they're stepping into the office, Misha addresses the guy behind the counter. “Any news on my report, Jimmy?”

Jimmy looks up at Misha. “Nope, not yet. The train should've reached the station about two minutes ago, but it might be delayed or-” the other police offer is cut off by the radio. Three heads snap up and Jensen waits breathlessly until the white noise turns into a voice.

“Report: Three male suspects captured at Van Cortlandt Park station. Victim found in subway severely injured. Ambulance is on the way. We need forensics here ASAP.”

Jensen flops down in a nearby chair and doubles over, cradles his face in his hands. Tears are rolling down his cheeks, but he laughs. Everything seems just crazy.

He just hopes the guy makes it.

_Fuck._

Misha pats his back on his way to his desk. He has a report to write. Jensen has to calm the fuck down, which seems kind of hard at the thought that he maybe just saved someone's life.

They've been waiting here for hours. It's midnight, and Jensen has to be at work tomorrow morning at 8 o'clock sharp, but he honestly couldn't care less.

Jensen has been walking around the station with his third cup of coffee in hand for an hour now, while Misha managed to talk some other officer into taking his patrol shift and currently handles the phone at the station desk.

And each time the phone rings and Misha answers it, Jensen jumps up from where he's sitting or rushes in from where he's pacing up and down the hallway.

No further information comes in for a long time.

Misha taps his pen idly against his desk and looks up worriedly at his friend. “Don't you think you better head home?”

“Do you seriously think I could sleep?” Jensen counters as he flops down onto the bench in the reception area, resting the cup of coffee against his thigh.

“You could always try.”

“Yeah, right,” Jensen huffs out. All he would do right now was probably sitting in front of his laptop, drinking himself to sleep. Thinking about it, this might be the first night he's actually spending sober since... well, a couple of months ago? But Jensen can't really remember the situation that made him not drink in the evening. Maybe his parents were visiting?

No. The other way around. It had been Christmas, and because of work he had only managed to fly down to Texas with the latest plane that evening, and there was a snow storm in NY, so they had a delayed start on top. By the time he was in Dallas, it was half past two in the morning and his Mom had sent him straight to bed. It would've been a bit weird to ask her for a bottle of his Dad's scotch, so Jensen just settled in. He had barely slept one hour, and the rest of the night was wasted away with rolling from one side to the other feeling restless and riled up and pathetically craving a drink. Well, it's not like Jensen doesn't know he's got a problem.

He rubs his burning eyes and has to blink a few times to readjust his contacts.

“Is it still that bad? With the sleeping?” Misha asks after the beat, eyeing Jensen carefully.

Jensen just nods.

“How much did you have last night?” Misha resumes the questioning, and they both know he's not talking about hours of sleep.

After a short look around, checking that none of the other officers is within earshot, Jensen admits quietly without looking at Misha, “Two thirds of a bottle of Jack and half a bottle of vodka?”

Misha's eyes don't waver as they level on Jensen. It seems like he expected something like that. After a deep sigh, Misha changes the topic. “So, you really wanna stay? Don't you have to work tomorrow?”

“I do, but... I want to know what happened to him,” Jensen's voice breaks midway through the sentence. He clears his throat quickly.

“Jen, he's probably still in surgery right now. They won't even tell us anything until it's clear how he's doing.”

“I know, but-”

“Jensen. Go home. And whatever the hour, I'll call you immediately to let you know everything. Okay?” Misha offers with another sigh.

Jensen bites his bottom lip, thinks about it. He could at least try to sleep. Freckles is also waiting at home. “Oh, shit,” he says, sudden guilt flaring through him. “Shit, I forgot Freckles.”

Misha waves him off with a smile. “I texted Vicky. She went over to feed him. She says hi, by the way, and you should really clean up your living room sometime this year.”

Despite his relief about the fact that Freckles isn't starving to death right now because he's a horrible, horrible human to him, Jensen feels deeply ashamed. He's always anxious about letting people into his flat. Mostly, it's only Misha who's allowed and, occasionally, Vicky if he knows beforehand and gets to take out at least a few of the empty bourbon bottles. It's embarrassing that she saw it, and Jensen can't help but look down, trying to hide his reddening face from his friend.

Jensen fumbles with the cup of coffee in his hands. His hands are shaking, and he's pretty sure it's not because of Vicky being in his apartment, but because he's in withdrawal. God, he needs a drink. Part of him just wants to tell Misha to bring him home so he could at least put a few shots of vodka down.

The other part of him knows he's got a serious problem with the whole booze thing. Sure, it helps him sleep. Sure, it helps him space out for a while. , but he can't kid himself here anymore, it's an addiction – his fucking hand shakes as he puts down the cup of coffee – alcohol was just always the easiest way out, to forget about his visions while still being able to function during his normal life.

“Are you okay?” Misha asks then, watching Jensen again closely.

Jensen doesn't nod. No sense in lying to Misha. He doesn't shake his head either, because that’s something he can't even share with his best friend right now. He has to deal with this on his own, so he just hides his face behind his hands, rubs his palms over tired, itching skin and burning eyes and chapped lips.

He feels like shit. And he still craves a drink. A beer would be totally enough, just – he needs something.

Who is he kidding here, it wouldn't be just one beer.

Jensen takes a shuttering breath and only realizes after he dropped his hands that Misha is sitting on his haunches in front of him. Not shaking his shoulder, getting him to focus. Not putting any pressure on him.

“You know that there are people who will help you if you just ask them, right?” he says quietly.

“As if anyone could help me,” Jensen snorts out bitterly.

Misha tilts his head to the side, still looks at Jensen even though the latter has turned his head and looks out the window. “Hey, promise me something,” Misha tries again, his voice still a soft flow, nothing urgent about it. And that's probably the only reason why Jensen even lets him continue the sentence. “Say, you saved this man's life today – well, technically yesterday, but that's beside the point. Anyway. Say you saved a guy's life. Isn't that worth thinking about changing your life? It might do wonders, you know. As it is, you're about to push up daisies sooner than you'd like to. And that I'd like you to, for that matter.”

“Who says I'd like it to be later,” Jensen answers bitterly, on impulse, and only realizes afterwards what he truly said with this.

Misha's lips open in disbelief, but he doesn't say anything and Jensen sees how the concerned look in his eyes shatters, leaving only pain and sadness and pity. He doesn't answer, doesn't say a word. Just leans upwards and wraps Jensen up in a tight hug, as best as he can manage.

And Jensen can't deny that it's really comforting. His eyes are burning, not only from tiredness but also from unshed tears now. After a moment's hesitation, he holds on to Misha with his arms around the other man's waist, holds on for dear life and doesn't want to let go. It's been too long that he felt another human's touch, that he felt like someone truly cared about him. It feels good. Jensen buries his head against Misha's shoulder.

“Don't do anything stupid, I beg you,” Misha coughs out, and Jensen realizes just then that his cheeks are wet. That Misha is crying at the idea of Jensen killing himself.

“I try to, Mish. I try to every fucking day,” Jensen presses through his teeth.

“Never stop trying, then,” Misha says. “You'll see. Whatever it is, it will come around and you'll see why it's worth to be alive.A Just wait for it.”

Misha and his usual cryptic, optimistic shit. Jensen even manages a short, bitter smile at that.

They are interrupted by the ringing of the telephone on Misha's desk.

The few minutes of sitting off to the side, listening to Misha talking on the phone seem like hours to Jensen. After the first sentence, he knew immediately that the call was about his guy in the subway. And Misha just does his job, asks all the questions the police needs to know – if the weapon was secured, if they could trace how the stabbing had happened, which angle and position, and so on. While Jensen just sits there on eggshells and tries not to rip the phone out of Misha's hand to ask the one and only important question: Is he gonna make it?

“Yes, I see,” Misha says, nodding to himself. “I'll have that reported and filed, thank you, Sir.”

A few seconds of silence, Misha nodding again. “I understand.” When he looks up and meets Jensen's eyes, he quirks a short smile, then turns back to stare at his desk in concentration.

“Uhm, on a more personal note,” Misha continues, apparently right before the caller hangs up, “The man who reported the crime is still with me. He's very concerned, as you can probably guess, so... Is it, under any circumstances, okay if he could visit him? - Yes, right. About how long? - Okay. I'll let him know. Thank you very much, Dr. Milligan. Good night.”

Misha sighs and puts the phone back onto the station.

“So?” Jensen asks, sliding forward so he sits on the edge of the chair.

Misha smiles, and for the first time this evening Jensen notices how tired he must be as well. Dark circles underline his eyes, but at least he's smiling. “They are pretty sure that he's gonna make it.”

And Jensen just closes his eyes, presses the heels of his hands against them. Relief washes over him like a tidal wave, hitting him straight in the chest, and yet he still can't fully comprehend it.

“He was in surgery for a few hours, but he's recovering steadily and he's stable at the moment. He's also a young, fit guy, so the doctors are pretty confident that his body will be healing fast. The knife wound wasn't very deep and the blade was deflected by the tenth rib, so all he got was a small cut to the liver. These things usually heal fast, but bleed like you wouldn't believe. So he lost a lot of blood and it will take him a while, but basically he's been really, really lucky. Part of why he's got such a high likelihood of survival is because he was found within minutes of the stabbing. So.”

“Wow,” is all Jensen can manage right now, his voice choked up and heavy.

“You saved his life,” Misha says calmly, smiling some more. “And just FYI, he's gonna be out for the next few hours because of the anesthesia, and they'll keep him in the intensive care unit until at least Saturday morning. But, you know, if he's doing well, we might have a plan for Saturday.”

Jensen nods, still too overwhelmed by all of it. God, he needs a drink. To celebrate, or so he tells himself. “Would you bring me home, Misha? I'm not really in the mood to take the subway.”

Misha huffs a short laugh before he pushes himself up and leaves the room. “I'll let Jimmy know that we're going home.”

“You gonna be okay?” Misha asks when he pulls over in front of Jensen's house.

“Yeah, sure. Goodnight, Mish,” Jensen replies, smiling wearily, and pats his friend's shoulder before he gets out of the car. It's half past one in the morning, just about the time where Jensen usually gets really drunk.

When he opens the door to his apartment, Freckles greets him in his usual way. He's twisting around Jensen's feet, snuggling against his legs, begging for attention. Jensen bends down and gathers him up in his arms. “Sorry for forgetting you, little one,” he whispers, but he's apparently already forgiven as Freckles curls into a ball of fur and purrs.

With Freckles still in the crook of his arm, Jensen wanders over to the fridge.

For the first time in ages, he thinks about what he wants to drink – not even _if_ , but _what_ – and the decision falls on wine. Because he's got something to celebrate today.

The bottle of red is drained faster than Jensen counted on, and it kicks in like a bitch. Wine isn't usually his poison, and that shows in the way he stumbles to bed at half past three in the morning. He can barely avoid crashing right on top of Freckles. Unfazed by the near-death experience, the cat jumps to his feet and searches for a new place to sleep. In the end, he deems a different spot on a small cushion worthy, and lays back down right beside Jensen's hip. Lazily, he Jensen reaches over and lets his hand run along the cat's small body.

Jensen snorts a few stray cat hair out of his nose.

He's nervous. Drinking usually calms him down enough to get some shut-eye, but even his regular dose of babituates doesn't make him sleepy tonight.

He's not even sure what he should tell the guy when he meets him.

Truth be told, Jensen isn't a sociable person. He's rather on his own and not good at making conversation or jokes. If the guy has seen him because he's got the same curse as Jensen, he's probably just as grumpy and has enough problems on his own. And while Jensen would be thrilled to find some company in his misery, it probably wouldn't do much to improve his life.

In the end, all he can do is let it happen. See what life throws at him this time.

Jensen finds a bottle of whiskey under his bedside table. After a few gulps of the familiar, smoky taste, he realizes that this is actually his good stuff. The whiskey he stored away in his cabinet because it cost 50 bucks a bottle. Well, he's celebrating, right? Doesn't matter how the bottle ended up beside his bed. Most likely, he dragged it over when he was immensely plastered that one time a few weeks ago. That one night where he ended up hovering over the toilet, because despite how used to alcohol he is these days, even he manages to overdo it from time to time.

The whiskey in his hands is too good and above all too expensive for Jensen's usual purposes, though. He puts it aside, intending to store it back into the cabinet once he's sober enough. With one hand still hanging over the edge of the bed, Freckles curled up in the angle of his arm and body, Jensen frowns into the shadow beside his closet. From the tilted window, a cold autumn breeze flies in and tickles over his bare stomach. It's chilly, but not exactly freezing. Jensen still stares into space.

The things he'd give to have another person right here, right now, in Freckles' place. Someone to hold on to, someone who held him in return. But that's never gonna happen, and Jensen knows it. It's not even about the sex, or about an epic love story. It's just that Jensen really misses some human touch every once in a while. Yes, he wants a boyfriend, but who would even take him with all the issues he has? Right. He sighs. And frowns some more, until the spiral of depressing thoughts sends him into a few fitful hours of dozing.

The first thing Jensen does when he flops down into the passenger seat of Misha's police car the next morning, is ask, “So, any news?” As he slams the door shut, Jensen is reminded once again of the headache threatening to split his head in two and just prays that Advil finally kicks in soon. His hangover hasn't been quite this bad for quite some time, and Jensen blames the wine.

Misha doesn't even need to ask what he's talking about. “None yet, but I think I'll get an update as soon as I'm at the station.” He looks tired, and confirms Jensen's musings by stiffling a yawn. “I'm sorry, Jensen, but I'm not good company today. I'm pretty done right now.”

“Yeah, I can relate,” Jensen mumbles, and they spend the rest of the ride in silence.

When Misha pulls over to Jensen's office building to drop him off, he smiles a tired smile. “I'll let you know as soon as I know anything new, okay?”

“Thanks,” Jensen says and nods. “See you after work, then.”

Misha nods back and drives off.

The day, as far as bad days at work go, isn't half as terrible as Jensen expected. As soon as his painkillers eventually decide to get to work, he manages to get out a fairly decent column for the Op-Ed section – on human behavior in subways, who would've thought. He just spends too much time pondering over such things lately.

Which doesn't make him refrain from checking his phone every ten minutes, looking and waiting for a text from Misha. When he still hasn't heard anything by 10 o'clock, Jensen fires off a short 'So?'.

'Nothing new. Afraid he's still comatose, but responding well to the medication.'

Jensen takes a deep, relieved breath.

An hour later, he still finds himself biting his lips and sends another text to Misha. The response is just 'Nothing new,' which is the same he gets when he heads out for lunch and asks again.

Jensen is reading the text right when he's shoving open the door to the deli across the street from his office. The vision that hits him couldn't be more unexpected.

_He stares at the sidewalk, sees a slender teenage boy lying on the ground. He curls into a ball, hands coming up to shield his head reflexively. Three bulky guys, all about the same age as the boy on the pavement, are standing around him. They all kick him hard a few times with their boots; kicking him into his side, his stomach, even onto the hands that cover his head._

_Jensen can hear the boy crying and groaning in pain every time another punch hits him._

_“How do you like that, huh, cocksucker?” one of the guys asks, but doesn't get an answer._

_The tallest of them, apparently their leader, holds his hands up to stop his companions. Then he kneels down on his haunches, and leans in right beside the boy's ear. “He asked if you like that, you fucking fag,” he snarls. “So answer!” and with that, he takes a swing at the boy's vulnerable stomach._

__Great, a hate crime, _Jensen thinks. Not like he gets to see gay bashings very often, but when he does, they hurt him on a whole different level._

_The boy just whines, and Jensen's heart clenches in sympathy. The poor kid._

_With sudden clarity, Jensen realizes it's the first vision he's had since subway guy. He looks around himself, because that's all he could ever do. He can't move, just like always. The colors of his surroundings are as blurry as ever, the ad on the bus station a couple yards down the street unreadable. The teenagers wear colorful clothing and haircuts that clearly scream 80s. The realization is almost soothing for Jensen. It's the past, as usual._

_The kid on the floor looks up, then, his eyes also skimming over the place from where Jensen is watching them. He can't see him._

_Just another usual vision, then._

_The boy takes another hard punch to the stomach and coughs. One of the bullies takes the opportunity now that his face is unshielded, and hits him squarely on the chin. Jensen can hear his jaw click, rows of teeth clashing painfully against each other. The boy quickly holds his hands over his face again, spits blood on the sidewalk. Jensen takes a wild guess that he bit his tongue pretty hard._

_The vision ends with one last, but very hard kick to the teenager's neck, bones cracking under the impact. When a siren starts to whine in the distance, the leader curses, “Fuck, the cops,” and they all dart off._

_Jensen never gets to see if they find the kid. Never gets to see if he survived._

Blinking into the warm midday sun, Jensen finds himself standing right in front of the door of the deli. People are walking around him, somehow pushing their way into the restaurant nonetheless and complaining loudly about his rude behavior. God knows how long he’s stood there like this.

These kind of visions strike a chord within him, and Jensen feels restless and thrown completely off balance as he joins the long line of business men on their lunch break.

He had been bullied just like that in high school, even though he had never outwardly said that he was gay. It was just that he never had a girlfriend, never went after girls and didn't go to parties. And the one girl that was brave enough to ask him if he would go out with her, he had turned down and felt like shit for it. She had asked why, and Jensen couldn't give her any good reason.

From then on, one of the 'cool kids' had decided that he had to be gay if he turned Casey Williams down. And from then on, his life was hell until he finally graduated and went to college. He made sure it was as far away as his parents allowed.

“Hi there, what can I get you?” the guy behind the counter asks him then, effectively pulling Jensen out of his musings.

Jensen orders a simple ham and cheese sandwich and sits down in the corner of the shop to eat.

The vision is still haunting him. It's somehow good to know that the visions are back to normal, as horrible as they still are. But that one left an especially bitter aftertaste. Jensen tries to shrug it off and focus on his sandwich.

Before he goes to work again, he sends yet another text to Misha.

This time, he calls back, and Jensen doesn't even get so say hello.

“Christ, Jensen, I'd tell you immediately if something happened! Chill the fuck out,” Misha reprimands him sharply.

“Sure, I just... uhm. Sorry, Mish.”

“You better be. I got work to do, you know,” his friend answers in a more calm tone. “I'll catch you later.”

“Yeah, see you,” Jensen says meekly and swallows around the lump in his throat. Guiltily, he pockets his phone again. He didn't want to get on Misha's nerves, it's just... he's curious, is all.

Jensen groans. He needs to get his mind off things or else he'll go crazy.

In the end, he buries his head in work for the afternoon. He's so engrossed in the latest article his co-worker tries to fit into his section and arguing with him about it that he almost flinches when his cell phone vibrates in his pocket. And completely forgets about it immediately.

It's only ten minutes later, when his colleague has stormed out of his office, that Jensen grabs for his phone, intends to waste some time and calm down from the fight, but then – there's a text from Misha.

'He's awake. I've got his name now. Do you want to know?'

Jensen's thumb hovers over the answer button on his phone. Does he want to know? Or does he want to meet the guy without knowing who he is? Placing his cell on the desk, Jensen rubs his face with both hands and sighs. Looking up, his gaze wanders out to the city, as far as he can see it from his office on the 29th floor.

Maybe it's childish, or Jensen is falling back to being a teenager, or he just wants the moment of surprise. 'Don't tell me. But thanks for the update, that's good to know.'

'And he's in very good condition. It looks like they can transfer him to the step-down unit sooner than expected.'

Jensen sucks in a breath at that. 'So we can visit him tomorrow?'

'If you want to. And don't forget that I've invited you over for dinner tonight.'

It's probably better this way, Jensen states silently to himself. He wants to be sober when he meets his mystery man, and if he spends the night at Misha's, it's more likely that he doesn't get drunk than if he's at home alone.

Dinner is nice and delicious, just like it always is when Jensen is over at Misha's. The banter between him and Vicky is also as hilarious as ever, and Jensen is again reminded of why he enjoys their company so much. It also makes him crave for someone like this in his life, too, but he manages to keep the bitterness of it all to himself.

They crash on the couch afterwards to watch a movie. The great thing about these two is that they never, never made Jensen feel like the third wheel, even if he totally is, and he smiles as Misha pats his back affectionately on his way to the kitchen.

“Beer?” he asks, although it's more like a statement than a question.

“Water's fine, thanks,” Jensen replies, and it feels like the weirdest thing to say.

Misha stops in his tracks, turns around and eyes him carefully. “Huh.” he says with a raised eyebrow, but then continues walking to the kitchen.

And brings Jensen a bottle of water.

Conversation is kept light, and no one talks about Saturday by default. Or Jensen's unusual non-alcoholic drink.

At about midnight, Vicky stifles a yawn. “Guys, I think I'm gonna go to bed.”

She stands up, kisses Misha goodnight. Jensen gets a hug and a pat to the back.

When she's gone, the two men sit in the living room in silence. Jensen sits on the couch indian-style, playing with the label of his water bottle, while Misha has his feet crossed at the ankle and propped up on the tea table. The TV is turned off, only the distant sounds of the cars on the street are breaking the silence. It's not uncomfortable, though. It never is with Misha.

“You won't sleep very well tonight, am I right?” he asks quietly after a few minutes of silence.

Jensen huffs. “Yeah, not really.” Lack of booze and sleeping pills.

Misha doesn't say it, but he knows. After another few minutes of companionable silence, Misha takes a deep breath again. “What do you think? Why could he see you?”

“I don't know,” Jensen answers quietly, staring at the floor, “I thought of it, of course. Maybe he's cursed with the same... thing that I have.”

Absent-mindedly, Misha nods. “Don't get me wrong, but if he's just as grumpy as you are, you won't get along very good.”

“Who says we need to get along? I just want to meet him and get to know why he saw me in the vision. That's all.”

Misha shrugs. “You know, I get what you said about the vision. That it was special? I think that too, I have a preternatural feeling about this.”

“Stop using words I don't even know. And I'm an editor for the New York Times,” Jensen smiles weakly and lightly punches Misha's shoulder.

“You know you like it. And I know I'll be reading _preternatural_ at least once in your next article.”

Jensen punches him again. “Fuck you,” he says.

“Not interested,” Misha counters.

When Jensen looks over, their eyes meet for a short moment, and with a sudden clarity Jensen sees Misha, his best friend. Instinctively, he reaches out, wraps his arm around Misha's shoulders and pulls him in close, hugs him as tight as possible in this position.

“You're the best friend someone could have, you know that?” Jensen whispers.

“I know. And I'm all yours,” Misha mock-whispers back.

Jensen can just smile, even when they break apart. His arm still stays around Misha's shoulders, as does Misha's around his waist.

“Are you looking forward to tomorrow?” Misha asks him after another beat.

“Yeah, pretty much. Actually, I'm kinda surprised that I haven’t freaked out yet.”

“Good,” Misha says. “Well, you're not in high school any more. It was time that you grew up, young Padawan.”

Jensen chuckles. And somehow, it breaks the tension of awaiting tomorrow. Because no matter how much Jensen will tell himself that he isn't nervous – he really kind of is. To his utter relief, they spend the rest of the evening with silly high school stories, just like old times. And just like that, time flies by.

At 3:45 in the morning, Misha blinks up at Jensen with tired eyes. “You wanna stay the night?”

Jensen grins, lazy as well. “Not planning on taking the subway this time of the night.”

“Sure, feel free to stay,” Misha mumbles as he tilts his head sideways to lean against Jensen's shoulder.

“Will do,” Jensen says softly and shifts in his seat to sit in a more comfortable position on the sofa.

Misha, eco-conscious guy that he is, has of course an automatic motion sensor hooked to the light switch. And after another five minutes, the lights in the living room dim down softly, making even Jensen's eyes drop to half-mast.

In the end, they both fall asleep like this. Misha on Jensen's shoulder, Jensen's head leaned against Misha's, both snoring softly when Vicky checks on them an hour later. She smiles as she throws a blanket over the two of them.

Jensen doesn't even flinch.

He just wakes up the next morning by the smell of freshly brewed coffee lingering in the air and bacon and eggs frying in the pan, and by Misha slowly moving and waking up as well. And he realizes he hasn't slept that well without any whiskey in ages.

The crick in his neck is worth it.

Jensen goes home to shower and try calm himself, but by the time they arrive at the hospital, he’s a bundle of nerves. Again.

“Don't think, Jensen. Just go in there. I'll wait right here,” Misha encourages him, gently shoving him towards the door to the hospital room.

“Why don't you come in with me?” Jensen almost begs, his eyebrows drawn tight.

Misha just shakes his head. “No reason for me to be there. You can do this, come on.”

When Jensen still hesitates, Misha mumbles a “Oh for fuck's sake” and takes a step sideways to knock at the door. Jensen has about five seconds to shoot him a glare before a deep and very male, although weak voice says from the inside, “Come in.”

Jensen takes a deep breath. His hands are shaking, and he doesn't quite know whether it's a symptom of the alcohol withdrawal or the fact that he's two seconds away from running away as fast as he can.

Misha takes a step back. Damn him. Traitor.

Wasn't he excited to meet this guy? Well, yes, he was. So. _This is going to happen_ , Jensen decides and pushes the door handle down, enters the room and closes the door again quietly. Then he takes a deep breath and steps towards the only occupied bed in the room.

The guy lying there cranes his neck towards the door, looking to see who is coming to visit him. Shaggy brown hair falls into his face, and Jensen can immediately see the bandage around his bare chest. His right hand is in a cast, resting on his stomach.

When his eyes meet Jensen's, they go impossibly wide, and his jaw drops. “You're... you're – Oh my fucking god,” he only manages to cough a few moments later. “It's _you_.”

Jensen doesn't have to try that hard to smile at him easily. “Guess so. Good afternoon to you, too.”

“Good afternoon, uhm...” and now he's obviously flustered, which Jensen finds probably too amusing for his own good. “Please, take a seat.”

Nodding once, Jensen drags the upholstered recliner that sits in a corner across the room over to the bed. Slanted, blue-green eyes follow his every movement, and Jensen is very aware of it.

“So-” he starts once he's sitting, but he gets quickly interrupted.

“I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be rude, but I haven't even introduced myself,” the man on the bed says, lifting his left – his good - hand and holding it towards Jensen. “I'm Jared. Jared Padalecki. And you're the guy from my vision, as far as I know.”

Jensen awkwardly raises his left hand, too, and shakes Jared's as best as he can. “The name is Jensen Ackles, and just for the record: you were the guy from _my_ vision.”

Jared smiles at that, a wide, toothy smile that makes Jensen look twice. He still looks beat-up and tired, the bandages doing nothing to lessen the impression, but the smile... is pretty breathtaking. “Yeah, that vision scared the shit out of me,” he replies quietly.

“So, you don't usually see these things? Or- wait, wait, wait. Stop right there-” Jensen stumbles over his own words at the realization, hands raised with his palms towards Jared as he composes himself. “You've got visions _frequently_ , too?”

“Well, yeah, or else I wouldn't have seen you, I guess. I thought I imagined you standing there, and now you're all... real and-” Jared grins again and shakes his head in disbelief. “And wow.”

Maybe Jensen looked a bit to close there, but he most definitely sees admiration in Jared's eyes. He also notices how he just can't stop smiling. “I'm pretty baffled myself, you know. It was the first time someone ever saw me in one of my visions.”

“For me, it was the first time I saw something that made any sense at all,” Jared replies nonchalantly with that boyish smile of his.

Jensen decides that he really likes the spark in those eyes. Jared might be injured, but he's thrumming with energy, and it seems to be his nature. Clearing his throat, Jensen reminds himself to focus on the first conversation he's had out of work and not with Misha for years. “Why? What do you usually see?”

Jared shrugs, but only with the shoulder that hasn't the bandage wrapped around it for stability. “The future. And I know what you think right now – that's so cool, right, like in _Minority Report_ , and I'm working with the police and saving people from murders that weren't even committed yet. Uhm, nope.”

And Jensen just sits there with a wide smile, watching him ramble.

“What?” Jared asks, an amused smirk curling up the edges of his lips.

“Dude, considering my visions don't end up like that, I never assumed yours would,” Jensen answers simply. “But what is it that you see in the future? UFOs? People in spacesuits?”

Jared grins. “Much less exciting. Think of a can a kid in front of me throws onto the sidewalk. Say, I'll kick it out of the way. The moment I touch it, I have a vision of that can. Lying in a desert, the paint long since worn off, a tumbleweed tumbling by. And after I watched that for three pointless minutes, I'm back to normal, but everyone around me thinks I'm nuts because I've been standing on the sidewalk for three minutes, staring at a stupid empty can.”

And Jensen can't hold it any more, bursts into loud laughing fit. It's just so ridiculous. There he is, seeing murders and rape every day, and this guy has visions of items in wastelands. It's too stupid, too ironic. So he just laughs, until Jared interrupts him with the widest grin on his face. “Dude. Stop laughing. I have a healing process going on for this cut in my liver, you know, and laughing is not exactly helping with that,” he says as seriously as he can manage.

“Sorry,” Jensen gasps for air, tears in his eyes. He can't even remember when he last laughed so hard. And when he felt as good as he does now. Jared raises his head from the pillow and shakes it, still grinning.

“So... when did your visions start?” Jensen coughs, trying to regain his self-control.

Jared drops his head back onto his pillow and looks up at the ceiling, which makes Jensen's eyes shift involuntarily to his throat. It's covered in day-old, dark stubble, and - _oh._ Jared's voice also does nothing to help Jensen focus. “When I was about four. They all thought I had ADHD or something, because I just spaced out randomly at the most inappropriate of times – although I was just staring at a inflatable ball, crumpled and cracked laying around in someone's closet.”

Jensen still smiles at him. His eyes are drawn to Jared's, he's unable to look away and he's not really sorry about that. When Jared's eyes meet his, Jared gives him a warm smile, and Jensen feels a surge of heat roll through him. His heart is pounding hard and fast in his chest, but this time it's not from nervousness any more.

Suddenly, Jared's smile drops a bit and his tone turns serious. “Hey, Jensen, can I ask you something?”

Still recovering from the way his name rolls of Jared's tongue, Jensen croaks out. “Sure, yes. Shoot.”

“What did you see two days ago? How did it happen? Because I know it wasn't a coincidence that the police officers stood right there when the doors of the subway opened,” Jared says quietly. His eyes are wavering for a moment, and Jensen sees through the mask momentarily. Jared seems like a happy-go-lucky guy, but he is so obviously hiding his fear after the attack in the subway.

“Uhm,” Jensen begins weakly. He drops his head onto his chest, staring at the floor as he swallows and then starts anew. “I took the subway home that day – the same you were on, by the way, but I didn't realize that until way later - and when I had to hold onto the armrest, I had that vision of you. It happens a lot to me in the subway, although you really were the first one who could see me during a vision.”

“Probably because I've got that gift as well,” Jared throws in. “I'd had the same vision that morning, when I went to work in the subway. First time I saw something happening to myself. And I saw you in the vision, standing helplessly at the side. I shouted and begged and you looked like you heard me, but you didn't do anything and I couldn't understand why.”

Confirming with a nod, Jensen continues, “I saw it just like this. And when I left my subway station - 86th street – I knew I just had to do something. So I called Misha, who's my best friend and an NYPD officer. He's the only one who knows about my visions. I did some brainstorming with him, and we ended up with the fact that for the first time ever, I saw the future. I usually just see the past, you know. And Misha just grabbed the radio and had two police cars sent to the station. That's why they were awaiting you.”

Jared stares at him throughout the little story, and Jensen can see the terror in his eyes at the memory. Then he subsequently presses them shut, breathes out an “Oh my god.”

“You okay?” Jensen asks, looking for signs of physical pain, possibly from his hand or the wound at his side, but Jared just opens his eyes and looks up at him.

“Yeah, of course I am. You saved my life, Jensen,” he replies breathlessly, locking eyes with Jensen as he speaks. “They said I had enough luck as it is, that it was good that I turned while the guy was stabbing me, that the knife was averted by my rib, but mostly what saved me was the fact that they found me so early. I had lost a lot of blood already, but because they had me in an ambulance within minutes, it really wasn't too bad. I didn't even need a transfusion. And all because of you,” he rambles on, deep gratitude shining in his eyes.

Jensen can only stare and smile awkwardly at him.

“C'mere,” Jared says then, lifting his left arm.

Jensen raises an eyebrow questioningly.

“I want to hug you, dumbass, so come here,” Jared grins.

“Oh,” Jensen answers intelligently, not even minding the insult, before he stands up slowly. “Uhm, I don't know, I don't wanna hurt you-”

“Shut up,” Jared says quietly and somehow manages to get his arm across Jensen's shoulders, pulling him down so that he ends up face-first on Jared's shoulder.

Closing his eyes for a second, Jensen takes a deep breath. Jared smells – well, mostly of hospital detergent and antiseptic agent they used during the surgery. But he's warm, and Jensen feels him smile against his temple.

“Thank you,” Jared whispers, and it's not meant to be a whisper, Jensen can tell.

However, while he holds himself up with his right hand in order to not crush into Jared's body, Jensen manages to wrap his left arm around Jared's shoulder and holds him close. Jared is trembling underneath him.

“Are you alright?” Jensen asks again silently, practically whispering into Jared's ear.

“Yeah, I just-” Jared chokes, clears his throat, and Jensen retreats reluctantly so he can recover. Jared's eyes are glued to his as he answers, “I just realized how close I was to dying. And how much of a random happenstance is it that you, another guy with visions just like me, was around to see me?”

Jensen sits back down on the chair beside the bed, but he doesn't get to answer.

The door opens, revealing the nurse who's currently on duty. “Sorry, guys, visiting time is over in a few,” she says with a sympathetic smile.

“Yeah, sure,” Jensen says, nodding at her. “So,” he adds once she has left the room. “I guess I better head home.”

“You do that,” Jared replies, again in that quiet tone, “Thank you very much for visiting me today, Jensen. And for, you know, saving my life.” Despite the miserable look on his face, he manages a smile.

“It would sound a bit off if I said 'You're welcome' now, am I right?” Jensen asks rhetorically, trying to ease the tense mood.

Jared only stifles a lopsided, unamused smile and frowns. The fingers of his uninjured left hand clench repeatedly into the sheets of his bed. “Listen, uhm... I know you have a life of your own and all that. But-” he breaks off, staring out the window and biting his lip.

Jensen sighs. “Actually, I don't have much of a social life, if I'm honest. So, yes, if you're okay with it, I'd like to come visit you again tomorrow. If that's what you were about to ask.”

It feels weird and yet so natural. Something about Jared makes Jensen act completely calm and confident – qualities he isn't used to in himself. Not at all. It's like something just clicked between them.

Jensen feels like he had known Jared forever. And he has the feeling that it's the same for Jared.

“Yes, I actually was,” Jared answers, surprise and relief opbvious in his voice. “Are you sure? I mean, I don't want to get into any Sunday family plans or something.”

Jensen shakes his head and smiles slightly. “My family lives in Texas and the only one who's waiting for me at home is my cat.”

“Huh,” Jared grins. “Woulda thought ya were more like the dog kinda guy,” he drawls lazily.

After a blink or two, Jensen grins right back. “What, you too?”

“Born 'n' raised in San Antonio,” Jared answers.

“Dallas,” Jensen adds simply and tilts his head. “And for the record, you try getting a dog in a Manhattan apartment while you're working full-time.”

“I think you better get outta here before the nurse comes to kick you out,” Jared says. “I'll see you tomorrow, okay?”

“You will, scout's honor,” Jensen raises his hand to show the typical sign.

“And if you're really as cool as you made me think you are today, you will bring me some candy,” Jared adds. “I'd kill for some M&Ms right now. You don't get anything good to eat in a hospital.”

Jensen mock-frowns and quirks an eyebrow. “Are you even allowed to have candy in here?”

“I don't know. As far as I know, it doesn't interfere with my painkillers, so. Why the hell not?” he shrugs.

“If you say so, Jared,” smiling at him one last time and giving a short wave, Jensen turns around to leave.

“Bye, Jensen,” he hears from the corner where Jared's bed stands right as he opens the door.

He doesn't look back.

Misha is waiting for him outside of the room, hands buried in his pockets. When he sees the smile on Jensen's lips, he looks slightly irritated. “Okay. What just happened?”

“I don't know, Mish. I really don't. Can you drive me over here tomorrow as well? And can we stop by a convenience store on the way?”

Misha just shakes his head. “Where is grumpy Jensen, and what have you done to him?”

On Sunday, Jensen is equipped with an armful of M&M bags – he didn't know which ones Jared liked, so he just bought a pack of each available kind – when he leaves for the hospital. His head is still pounding, and his sunglasses are only a weak shield against the blinding sun.

Maybe he shouldn't have drunk so much last night. But then again, he was totally on a high from meeting Jared, and he needed to get wasted. And it was fine, really. Until this morning, when the headache began. Only after half a pot of coffee and some dry toast did his stomach eventually stop turning somersaults enough for Jensen to be able to leave the house.

Jensen is again pretty excited to meet Jared.

Misha, unfortunately, has his in-laws over for the weekend, so Jensen has to take the subway to the hospital. And he doesn't even mind it as much as he usually does, simply because it's Sunday, mid-morning, and the sun is shining, and he gets to see Jared.

He barely dares to say that he's actually in a good mood, hangover and subway be damned.

The car is very crowded, Jensen notices once he's taken off his sunglasses, which is both parts unfortunate and lucky. Lucky, because that means there's not much danger towards a crime of the violent kind, and unfortunate because it means Jensen has to stand and hold onto a bar.

Not even watching and thinking of stories about the people around him spares Jensen the buzz in the back of his head, and the subsequent vision. Not even thinking about Jared helps.

_The subway train leaves the station, accelerating as it enters the tunnel. The passengers are holding on to each other, mostly, because it's rush hour and they are crammed into the car, packed like sardines. Some are lucky to even have a bar within reaching distance, but most don’t._

_So it's not really a surprise for Jensen to see a hand sneak its way in between another dude's backpack and a middle-aged lady's back. Jensen traces the arm with his eyes and finds a wiry teenager who's looking around cautiously, watching out so that no one sees him. He slips his hand into the open handbag of the woman standing beside backpack guy and fumbles around in it, careful not to move it too much and using every tremble that shakes the train. In the end, he comes up with the woman's wallet, but in the moment he tries to pick it out of the handbag, the train brakes for the next station. The deceleration shakes up the crowd, and his hand pulls involuntarily at the wallet – hard enough that the woman feels the pull at the strap of her handbag and turns around._

_“Hey! What are you doing?” she exclaims loudly, and all the people around him turn to the thief._

_She catches him with his hand in the cookie jar, and he just stares at her._

_Apparently, she also has good reflexes, because she immediately grabs his arm, slaps the wallet out of his hand and pockets it again. “Somebody grab him! I'll report this!” she says loudly._

_Right then, the train's doors open, and the teenager takes to his heels, slips out of backpack guy's hands who tried to reach for him and before anyone can hold him, he's vanished into the crowd._

Jensen blinks and shakes the usual afterglow of the vision off.

Well, that was pointless. And probably the least violent vision he's had. Ever.

Huh.

In the process of reorienting, Jensen skims over the MTA map above the doors. A few seconds later, the muffled female voice announces the next station over the speakers, and Jensen is relieved to realize that he only has one more station to go.

The remaining journey to the hospital goes by without any other visions, thank god, and by 11 a.m., Jensen is able to knock at Jared's door.

“Come in!”

With a smile already on his lips, Jensen steps through the door and spots Jared sitting on the bed. He meets Jensen's smile with a blindingly bright grin. “Hey, man,” he says.

“Hey yourself,” Jensen answers as he puts his bag aside to hang his jacket onto the rack beside the door.

“Wondered when you would show up,” Jared says. He's toying around with the TV remote in his hand, but finding nothing interesting to watch. CNN flickers on the small screen.

“Yeah, sorry about leaving you waiting and bored,” Jensen strolls over to the bed and places the bag on it. “But I thought you might accept those as an apology?”

Jared reaches for the bag and pulls it onto his lap. One look into it is enough for him to recognize its content, and he practically gapes. “Dude,” he says, grinning up at Jensen. “Thank you!”

“You're welcome,” Jensen grins back before turning to fetch the recliner.

By the time Jensen has taken a seat, Jared is digging into the bag of peanut M&Ms and shoves handfuls of it into his mouth. He moans and rolls his eyes into the back of his head, before saying with his mouth still full, “Oh my god, you're my hero.”

Jensen just stares and grins.

“In more ways than one,” Jared adds and winks.

With a soft smile on his lips, Jensen clears his throat. “So, how are you holding up?”

Jared chews, swallows. “Doctors say it's looking good. I don't even need as many painkillers anymore, and if I'm lucky, I might be allowed to get out of bed tomorrow.”

“Great! Glad to hear that,” Jensen answers, still smiling, and watches Jared crunching on another handful of candy. He seems like he's on cloud nine with the bag of M&Ms, joyful like a little kid, and Jensen can't stop watching. It's so different from what he usually experiences and it makes a warm feeling spread in his chest. Happiness, contentedness. Something like that.

“Hey, uhm – yesterday was kind of a surprise and all, so I didn't even get to ask you what you do for a living,” Jared looks up from his bag of candy and smiles, curiosity shining from his eyes.

“Journalist and chief editor at the New York Times, actually,” Jensen answers simply.

Jared's eyes go wide. “Oh, wow! Cool.”

“And you?”

“Freelance writer. Although I don't write much these days,” Jared says with a bitter tone.

“Meaning?”

“Well, after I graduated from UT I wrote my first book, which was... not successful by any means, but it made a few lines on certain websites. My editor kept bugging me about how once I set foot in this genre, I had a lot of potential and all that. I told her I already started work on my second novel, but truth is, I haven't written a word in months. Total writer's block. So, after I told my best friend – Chad, he lives here in New York – he said I should take a break from home, visit him here for a few weeks. Maybe that would help,” Jared snorts. “Yeah, right. I’ve been here one week, and all I managed to do was get stabbed and put in the hospital.”

“So... What do you write? Which kind of novels?” Jensen asks.

“Horror, mostly. A lot of the bloody, gory stuff.”

“Why would you write that?” Jensen raises his eyebrows. God knows he has enough of that shit in his life, he wouldn't even touch such a book.

“People buy it,” Jared shrugs, then smiles. “And I like to write bloody, gory stuff. The problem is the plot around it.”

And that, ironic as it is, makes Jensen chuckle.

“What?” Jared asks, eyeing him as if Jensen offended him. “Why are you laughing?”

“It's just... my visions, you know. I told you I always see the past, right? And I exclusively see all the bloody, gory stuff you like to write about.”

“What, like, murders and stuff?” Jared frowns, his smile faltering.

“Exactly. Murders and rapes and suicides. Every single day.”

“Oh,” Jared coughs and quickly drinks a mouthful of water. “That must _suck_. Man, I don't... I don't even know what to say. How do you deal with that?”

And something about the way he says it, something about the way his eyes are glued to Jensen's as he shoots him a worried frown - that something makes Jensen look at him twice. Because it distinguishes him from all the other people on the whole wide world -- Jared _gets_ it. Jared has visions, too, and he gets what Jensen is going through.

Jensen has to gulp around the lump in his throat, feels suddenly choked up with emotion.

“Jensen?” Jared reaches out and shakes his shoulder.

“I'm fine, I'm fine,” Jensen says, “I just realized... ah, forget it.” He shakes his head, shrugs the feeling off. Jared is still the dude he only met yesterday, even though it doesn't feel like that.

“No, please. Tell me,” Jared urges on and starts chewing on another handful of M&Ms.

Jensen smiles weakly. Well, screw it. “I just realized that you're pretty much the only one who _does_ understand how much it really sucks.”

Jared tilts his head to the side as he listens, eyes locked on Jensen's. After a short beat, he smiles warmly.

And just as Jensen reciprocates that smile, Jared freezes with his hand half-way in the bag of M&Ms. Stares right at Jensen, right through him, with that wide smile still on his lips. Jensen's first instinct is to panic, to call for the nurse, but another moment later, he gets it.

Jared has a vision.

And if anyone should understand that and not panic, it's him.

To test how far the rigidity goes, Jensen reaches out and grabs a few M&Ms for himself, brushing Jared's hand that's hovering over the bag. He doesn't even flinch. Jensen watches him closely. His blue-green eyes don't blink once, but that gives Jensen all the time he needs to notice the laugh lines around the corners. As his eyes travel down over Jared's nose, Jensen also takes in the curve of his lips, and the dimples on his cheeks.

Jensen kinda wants to kiss him. Maybe he's also leaning in a bit too close.

And right when that realization hits him like a brick to the head, Jared sucks in a deep breath and blinks at Jensen. “Oh,” he says when he notices how close Jensen is, his voice croaky.

“Back with me?” Jensen jokes, retreating quickly.

“Yeah, I am...”

“So, what did you see?” he asks, popping a few M&Ms into his mouth.

Jared huffs humorlessly. “That bag being burnt in an incinerator. Compared to your visions, this is peanuts.” Reading the label on the bag, Jared adds with a frown, “Literally.”

And Jensen can't help himself, he just bursts into laughter. Jared falls in a few moments later, and it's liberating to just laugh it off. However, it takes them minutes to calm down, mostly because Jared keeps looking at the bag of M&Ms and starts giggling all over again. “I can be quite childish, I know. Sorry about that,” he says with that trademark smile of his. That thousand megawatt smile that would make Jensen admittedly weak in the knees if he wasn’t already sitting.

“Don't be,” is Jensen's answer and he means it. He has the feeling that Jared's joyful nature is quite a good influence on him.

The following hours pass by in a blur. Most of them are spent with Jared cracking jokes about his life, about stupid visions, and Jensen laughing along. In fact, he can't remember the last time he's laughed so much. During the short beats of seriousness in between, though, Jensen can see it right there in Jared's face. It's an act. Well, part of it. While Jensen doesn't have any doubt in Jared's cheerful character, he still notices that there's something off. There are taut lines around his mouth and eyes, lines that are usually crinkled with laughter, but they seem too tense now. And Jensen's guess is on fright here. Jared is terrified, because he's had a good life, and never had anything bad happened to him – at least that's as much as Jensen can deduce from his stories.

But he's been stabbed in the subway mere days ago. Of course he's terrified.

Jensen is still pondering about the matter, staring idly into some space that is vaguely beside Jared's head, when the other man checks the watch on his wall. “Not to be rude here, but fair warning: Chad should be here any minute. It's his day off.”

“Okay, then I think I better leave,” Jensen nods in understanding as he gets to his feet.

“No, no, please. I didn't mean it like that,” Jared throws in quickly, one hand raised defensively.

“Yes, I know,” Jensen shrugs and smiles sheepishly. “It's just... He's your best friend. I don't wanna intrude.”

Jared chews on a few M&Ms again. “You wouldn't, but... if that's your choice, that's okay. You'll probably meet him sooner or later anyway. And, uhm, by the way... when do you get off work tomorrow?”

“Probably around six, if I don't have to do overtime. Why do you ask?”

“I just though that if I'm allowed to get up tomorrow, I'd like to go out to the inner yard of the hospital, you know. And I'd really appreciate some company.”

Jensen smiles and takes the offer for what it is. “Lucky for you, I'm good at the company part.”

“Yeah, you are,” Jared grins.

A shiver runs down Jensen's spine at that, because the way Jared said it made it sound almost affectionate. And damn him for getting his hopes up. He doesn't even know if Jared is gay.

He is so screwed.

On Monday, Jared is allowed to get out of bed for the first time, and he and Jensen follow through with their plan to go down to the courtyard. They sit on a bench and talk and enjoy the last rays of sunlight until Jared has to be back in his room for the medical round. Afterwards, there's still enough time left until visiting time is over, so they end up watching the football game on the tiny hospital TV.

On Tuesday, Jensen brings a bag of gummy worms with him and Jared's eyes are almost tearing up when he sees them. “God, I missed these like you wouldn't believe,” he says. Then he starts in on a ramble of how his metabolism is kinda fucked up. The amounts of candy he eats on a usual day would probably have caused diabetes in a normal person like Jensen, and he wonders how Jared can still look so fit and healthy despite his eating habits.

On Wednesday, it's a tub of Sour Patch Kids that Jensen pulls out of his bag and Jared all but kisses him. Not that Jensen would mind much, though.

Visiting Jared has easily become his highlight of the day. He finds himself stressing out at work in order to be finished by 6 p.m. He also finds himself looking for things to bring with him to Jared or thinks about all the stuff he wants to talk about with him.

The visions he has had in those three days didn't contain one single murder, nor suicide, nor rape. It's small crimes, often aborted, that he sees, like the failed pickpocket in the subway. For crying out loud, he saw a small girl drop her lollypop into the dirt and cry because of it yesterday. It doesn't get much better. As far as the visions go, it's been the greatest few days he's had since high school. As far as the rest goes, he hasn't been feeling so well in years. Misha even asked him if he decided to do drugs now, because he's in such a perpetually good mood.

But it's all Jared.

Jensen learns a lot about Jared in those few days. That he's a middle child just like him, with an older brother and a younger sister, that he's four years younger than Jensen, that he's a Dallas Cowboys fan just like Jensen. It would be kind of creepy if they weren't so naturally at ease with each other. And sometimes, the way Jared smiles at him makes Jensen feel all fuzzy and warm and no, he isn't used to that. He still likes the feeling very much. It's just been way too long, if ever, that he felt as light-headed as he does when he's with Jared.

It isn't hard to accept that he likes Jared a lot, even though he had no idea who he was until a week ago. And he's sure that the feeling is mutual.

Jared's recovery process surprises the doctors. Jensen says it's the candy, Jared replies it's Jensen taking care of him. He quickly disguises that sentence behind a murmured “What with laughing is the best medicine and stuff,” but Jensen just smiles at him stupidly.

They also talk about their theories concerning the visions.

While Jensen is sure that's it's been partly due to them coincidentally ending up on the same subway train and partly whatever it is that makes the two of them have visions clashing and getting messed up, Jared's theory is more detailed. He thinks that their gifts overlapped in some kind of way. Jared, who usually sees the future, has the vision in the morning; Jensen, who usually sees the past, has a vision of Jared having his vision later that day, so it was practically the past he saw, and yet the future through Jared's eyes.

In the end, Jared just shrugs and smiles at him. “You know, I simply think that the universe, or fate, or destiny, or whatever you want to call it, wanted us to meet."

That had been yesterday. And Jensen remembered looking at him, staring at him with wide eyes, and realizing with surprising clarity that he had fallen in love with him. He had nodded absent-mindedly in response while Jared had that smug, overly amused smile on his lips that never failed to make Jensen melt into a puddle of goo.

So, all in all, his life had been turned upside down completely in the last few days.

Misha teased him endlessly when he returned home yesterday – Wednesday – and told him on the phone about his latest epiphany.

“So you've got the hots for a guy you met because he was stabbed in the subway?”

“Basically, yeah,” Jensen said and smiled to himself.

“Is that what you tell your kids? How you met their dad?” Misha chuckled.

“Yeah, of course,” Jensen answered, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Because we totally didn't _just_ meet, sure we're gonna have a family one day.”

“Are you going to do something about it anytime soon?”

Jensen sighed. “I don't know, Mish. I mean he's still recovering. And I don't even know if he's gay. He didn't drop any hint at that.”

“Well... did you?” Misha asks simply. “Drop a hint that you're gay?”

“Well, no-”

“Maybe you should?”

Maybe he should, yes. The question is more like _HOW._

On Thursday, Jensen gets off work early. Like, really early, at 3 p.m.

He decides to bring a tub of rainbow Twizzlers with him this time. Dropping a hint as subtly as possible, or so he hopes.

“Oh god,” Jared groans when he sees them. “This is happiness for me, you know.”

Jensen just grins and takes his usual seat on the chair beside Jared's bed. Then he grabs the tub and opens the lid for Jared, knowing fully well that he isn't able to because of the cast on his right hand. As far as the doctors told him, the wrist is both strained and fractured. Jared said he had tried to get a swing in on one of the muggers and slammed his hand full-force into a metal bar on the subway. It had been that swing that turned him around and made the knife deflect off of his rib as he was stabbed.

“Stupid cast,” Jared says and gratefully takes the tub from Jensen. “Thanks.”

After sticking three Twizzlers at once into his mouth, he moans. “Seriously, I know I can indulge in candy for now, because it's like... the best replacement for sex.”

Jensen is drinking from Jared's bottled water and has a hard time not spluttering it all over Jared's beloved licorice. “What?” he coughs.

“Dude, I didn't mean to shock you,” Jared grins at his reaction.

“No, no, 'm not shocked, just... that came unexpectedly,” Jensen manages a lopsided smile. “And since when is candy a valid replacement for sex?”

Jared sighs. “It's been a week since I got some alone time, you know, and I'm just human. And I mean, seriously, you can't catch a break around here, the nurses and doctors are constantly walking in and out of here, you can't lock the door...”

Jensen raises an eyebrow and smirks while trying not to think of the last time he had something even resembling a libido.

When he looks at Jared, though, sucking before biting off a piece of licorice, there are definitely a few feelings curling up in his stomach that weren't there for a long time. Jared licks over his lips then and swallows, and Jensen's mouth goes suddenly very dry.

“And yesterday, when I touched the bed over there on my way to the bathroom,” Jared adds, too engrossed in devouring his candy to look at Jensen, but pointing in the vague direction of the second, unoccupied bed in the room, “I saw a couple having sex. Now half-naked women aren't my bag, but – like I said, only human. Sucks when your visions are tied to your mood.”

Now that's a lot to take in at the moment. Jensen starts off small. “Half-naked women aren't your thing?” he asks tentatively. He doesn't even dare to think what that most likely means.

“Yeah, didn't I mention it already? I'm gay,” Jared says unfazed and as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

Which it probably is.

But even though he himself had to say this twice in his life as well – to his parents and to Misha – Jensen feels thrown off balance completely.

Jared tilts his head to the side and stops chewing on his Twizzlers for a second. “Hey, Jensen? You okay? Sorry if I- I mean, I didn't think it was a problem and-”

“It isn't,” Jensen interrupts him and props his elbow up on the edge of Jared's bed, running his hand over his chin and mouth. Why can't he just get it out? It's not that hard. Just say 'Me too.' It just won't come out.

Taking a deep breath, Jensen lets his eyes wander to the window, where the sun is about to touch the horizon. It had been around this time, a week ago, that Jared had been attacked. And here he sits with him in his hospital room, knows he's fallen hard for him, has just received the confirmation that yes, Jared is gay, and he can't even get himself to say that he is as well. It's a bit much at the moment. Maybe confessing to Jared now would make it too imminent? Too real?

Jared still watches him carefully, and Jensen breaks the tense moment with a smile. Smiling comes to him so easily these days, so it's not a surprise that Misha thought he's on drugs.

The next time Jared's uninjured hand reaches into the tub to retrieve another piece of candy, Jensen grabs one for himself. Their hands are brushing along each other's, and momentarily, they both stop and look at each other. Jensen's lips curl up into a smug smile more or less involuntarily, and Jared has a small grin on his face by default. It makes Jensen's heart skip that metaphorical beat, but he somehow manages to get his hand back with a rainbow twist and takes a bite off it.

Jared is still waiting for a further response, and his eyes are tracking Jensen's each and every movement. The air feels so charged with tension between them, it's almost palpable.

Jensen thinks to himself that he really enjoys making Jared flustered.

For a few moments, they eat in silence, until Jared says, his voice a bit raspy, “What do you think of going out and getting some fresh air as long as the sun's still up?”

“Yeah, we totally should,” Jensen says quickly, taking the chance to change the subject, and gets to his feet. “I just gotta use the bathroom before we head out.”

“Sure,” Jared nods.

Jensen takes his time to walk over to the bathroom on the other side of the room, and glances over his shoulder shortly once he's reached the door.

Jared is totally checking out his ass.

Which, of course, just makes Jensen a bit more smug. As soon as the door to the bathroom is closed, he grins at himself in the mirror. The expression seems so strange on his face; he hasn't seen it in way too many years. But he can't help it, he's just happy. It feels really flattering to have someone's attention like that, even though Jensen has enough pangs of conscience as it is. There's still so much about him that Jared doesn't know.

After he's finished and Jared has dressed in a hoodie and sweatpants instead of his thin hospital gown, they make their way down into the lobby. And if Jensen walks a bit closer to Jared than usual, then that's that.

Jared seems a bit off his game, too, which amuses Jensen to no end.

Maybe it's mean and cruel of him to not come out to Jared at this point if that's what makes Jared so uncomfortable. But his eyes flicker over to Jensen every few seconds, and he just looks really, really adorable when he's as flustered like this.

Jensen is kind of evil here and he even enjoys it.

When they reach the bench they have been sitting on every day since Monday, Jensen feels the familiar buzz in the back of his head. But he barely gets to think _Oh no, not again,_ before the vision begins.

_It's a hot, summer afternoon, and the sun is burning in the sky. Jensen looks around, but of course no one is walking around when it’s a hundred degrees out here._

_Except for an old lady with white, short granny perm hair who sits on the same bench Jensen is sitting on right now. She has a thin hose attached to her nose, and Jensen follows it quickly back over hear ears and down to her feet, where an oxygen tank on wheels sits next to her on the ground._

_Lung cancer or COPD, he guesses. Maybe both._

_She is old, though, probably lived a long, happy life with a husband and several children. She lived through the time where women were suddenly allowed to smoke, and of course she began like all her female friends did. And now that she's well over her 80th birthday, she pays the price for it. Her breath comes labored and in short gasps, and she sighs as she closes her eyes, face towards the warm sun and a smile on her lips._

_Jensen's eyes fall to her chest, which rises and falls quickly, again and again._

_Until it doesn't._

_Her head drops back against the backrest of the bench, and she doesn't breathe any more._

_She still smiles, though._

Jensen blinks a few times and finds Jared looking straight into his eyes. “What was it?” he asks quietly.

It's the first time he's had a vision in Jared's presence, but Jensen doesn't feel nearly as uncomfortable like when he has one while being with Misha or his parents. “I just saw an old lady die on this very bench,” he says silently, but a smile is spreading on his lips. “She was old and sick, had an oxygen tank with her that helped her breathe. And then she just closed her eyes and stopped. Just went peacefully, with a smile.”

Ironically, the vision hasn't left the usual, bitter aftertaste that Jensen is used to. Quite the opposite.

“She seemed happy,” Jensen adds, looking down onto the floor.

Jared nods. “That's good, right? I mean, in comparison to your usual visions.”

“It is. Truth is, I haven't seen anything _really_ bad for a few days,” Jensen confesses, looking up at Jared.

A small smile is playing around his lips as he answers, “Are you sure your visions aren't connected to your mood? Like mine?”

Jensen looks up into the sky and ponders. He leans into the backrest, enjoying the soft feeling of Jared's arm laying casually on top of it. “Could be?” he shrugs.

“Haven't you noticed anything before? I mean, they had to vary at some point throughout all those years,” Jared inquires.

Jensen doesn't need to think about that. “No, they really didn't. But then again-” he takes a deep breath. He hasn't told Jared about that part of him yet. He hasn't told anyone but Misha, and Misha, again, picked up on most of it by himself. Not finding the right point to begin, Jensen rubs his face with both hands.

“But then again?” Jared prompts, poking Jensen's shoulder affectionately with the case on his right arm.

“My mood didn't either,” Jensen looks into Jared's eyes, then, to find sincerity and honest concern. He sighs deeply as he realizes that - If there is one person out there who deserves the truth, it's Jared. So Jensen resumes talking silently, his voice trembling. “It's not easy for me to tell this, you know, but I just... I think you should know. I'm not usually like I am around you, Jared. There's a reason why I only have one best friend and nobody else. It's the visions. I mean, it's a good twenty years now that I’ve seen the worst of humanity every day and to be honest, I'm a mess. I haven't had a serious relationship in over ten years. I'm depressed, and I drink too much. I can't sleep without half a bottle of whiskey and the doubled recommended dose of sleeping pills. I eat painkillers like you eat M&Ms. So, yeah, my mood has been pretty consistently shitty throughout all those years.”

And wow, where had all that suddenly come from? Jensen coughs, a bit embarrassed.

But Jared nods slowly with his eyebrows drawn into a frown.

Jensen sighs again. There's still more to it and he should better get it out now before it's too late. Jared should have a choice in this. “Don't you think that makes me kind of a bad influence? To be honest, I really like spending time with you, but if you decide that it's better we go our separate ways after this, I wouldn't hold it against you. I don't want to drag someone else down with me.”

Wide blue-green eyes meet Jensen's. “So you're suggesting I better leave you alone with your issues? You'd rather go down on your own than accept someone's help?” His tone is rather offended.

Ashamed, Jensen looks aside, stares into the ground. His cheeks feel hot and his eyes are burning. Surely that's his contacts.

“You are so full of shit, you know that,” Jared huffs, and his sharp tone makes Jensen look up at him.

“What?”

“Okay, let me tell you about the Jensen I've met during the past week, because I had the feeling I got a pretty accurate and honest impression here. Of the guy who saved my life, by the way. Who visited me every day and practically sacrificed all his spare time to do it. And he made me laugh and brought me candy and from the very first second understood me on a level no one ever _could_. And all I see right now is how his own visions are getting better because he's in a better mood as well.”

Jensen stares at him breathlessly. Jared bites his lip, and he's obviously not done with his little speech. Spontaneously, Jared reaches for Jensen's hand that is currently resting on his thigh and squeezes it tightly.

“Why are you still denying yourself a good thing when it's right in front of you, Jensen?” Jared asks quietly.

The point is, Jensen knows he's right. And god, Jensen wants him, wants him like he didn't want anything in a long, long time.

He tries to answer, his lips falling open, but he can't manage to croak out a single word. Instead, he finds his eyes drawn to Jared's again. Jared, who looks at him with those big, puppy eyes and so much concern in them that it almost breaks Jensen's heart.

 _Oh, screw it,_ Jensen thinks then.

He carefully places his free hand at Jared's waist, low enough so he doesn't brush the wound, and shuffles towards him on the bench. With a deep chuckle, Jared's casted arm curls around his shoulders and pulls him in close. Jensen's face gets buried in the crook of Jared's neck in the process, and Jared's shaggy hair tickles his nose, but damn – it feels perfect. There's no other word for it.

“That wasn't too difficult, now was it,” Jared says, and Jensen can hear the grin in his tone.

“Shut up,” he replies affectionately.

“You wish. I need other things to make me shut up.”

Jensen leans back in Jared's arms and smiles up at him. “That so,” he muses, a smile tugging at the edges of his lips.

His eyes trace Jared's as they drop to Jensen's lips. Jensen involuntarily holds his breath when Jared's tongue flicks out to lick his lips. He might really have had a thing for those lips from the very beginning. He watched Jared talk, watched him bite down on them when he pondered or when he felt unsure about something, he watched Jared chewing on a lot of candy and all of that has done nothing to lessen his attraction to that particular pair of lips. Much the opposite.

“I think I might have an idea or two about that,” Jensen adds, eyes still focused on Jared's lips. They look soft and plush, and so very kissable.

“Show me?” Jared asks innocently, but the mischievous glance in his eyes gives him away, as does the tremble in his voice.

Jensen feels heat flaring up in his stomach, feels how it turns to a warm, affectionate wave in his chest, and it almost feels too good to be true.

This time, it doesn't take second thoughts or pondering. Jensen just leans up and seals his lips over Jared's, kisses him softly. It's just a dry press of lips against each other's until Jared opens his mouth to capture Jensen's full upper lip between his. For a few long moments, there is innocent teasing and trying, mapping out the other one's lips and learning their shape. Jared apparently likes to nip and suck lightly in between long, open-mouthed kisses, and Jensen is far from complaining about that.

However, the situation changes completely when Jared frees his left hand from Jensen's to reach up and thread his fingers through the short hair on the back of Jensen's head. Pulls him in close and tilts his head for better access as the kiss – still slow and languid – becomes increasingly dirty. Little licks across bottom lips are traded, the tips of their tongues meeting occasionally and circling around each other.

Jensen hasn't been kissed so thoroughly in quite some time, and considering the situation he's in right here and now, he has no idea how he managed it.

And although he never thought that was even possible, it gets even better when Jared returns to simple kisses without tongue and all that, just a firm, warm touch against his lips. They are soft, and a bit chapped because it's windy today and they didn't take anything to drink outside with them, and it's just completely and utterly perfect.

During the time of his random hook-ups – or rather in the beginning of that period – Jensen had kissed a few guys. But there were always the ones who kissed too fierce, too fast, too wet, too gentle – all kinds of ways to do it wrong. After a while, he had a no-kissing-policy and whoever didn't like it also didn't make it into his bed.

Jared, though, Jared hit all the right buttons, even during a kiss that couldn't be simpler. There is finesse in it, and a lot of gentleness and caring and Jensen isn't too butch to admit that Jared has him melting in his arms here.

When they finally pull reluctantly apart in order to get some air, Jared breathes out a desperate, “God, Jensen, I wanted to do that since... like... a week ago.”

And Jensen just grins at him. “Me too, since about a few days ago.”

Jared pouts as if Jensen just personally insulted him. “Why only a few days ago?”

“Sorry, but you didn't look so hot with blood all over your clothes and stuff.”

“So, I didn't look very strong and manly?” and for emphasis, Jared flexes his bicep at Jensen.

Absent-mindedly, Jensen runs a finger down from Jared's shoulder, over the muscle bulging under the fabric of the hoodie, and down to where the cast begins. He smiles mischievously at Jared. “I didn't say that.”

“Are you flirting with me, Mr. Ackles?” Jared asks then, smiling smugly.

“Why would I do that,” Jensen answers with another smirk.

Jared opens his mouth to answer again, but whatever he was about to say gets muffled by Jensen's mouth on his, kissing him again, shorter this time.

“As much as I like what we're doing here,” Jared says ruefully as they break apart, “I think I need to be back in my room in a few for the medical round.”

“'fraid so,” Jensen answers with a sigh.

On their way back up to Jared's room, they don't hold hands, but when it turns out that the elevator is empty except for them, Jared takes advantage of it by stealing a couple short kisses from Jensen.

And when Jensen looks at him, really looks at him after one of those, he makes a decision.

“So, I think I'll head out early today. Misha will pick me up,” Jensen explains when they enter Jared's room.

“Okay,” Jared answers, but it's full of regret to let Jensen go now. He sits down on his bed, facing Jensen.

With a smile, Jensen closes the distance and hugs him tightly. “Goodnight, Jay,” he says.

“Goodnight to you too,” Jared whispers, brushing his left hand through Jensen's hair. “Sleep tight.”

Jensen places another short peck on his mouth and turns to leave. He takes his time slipping into his jacket, waiting for the one sentence he's sure Jared will say any second now.

When he turns to the door and nothing has been said between them, Jensen spins on his heels. “No admonishment that I shouldn't drink too much or anything tonight?”

Jared watches him closely as he tilts his head to the side. Then he shakes it slowly. “Nope. You know why?”

Jensen steps towards him again, a confused frown on his forehead. “No, tell me.”

“It's not me who has to tell you what to do. This is something you have to realize and decide for yourself. If someone else does it for you, even by applying pressure, it won't be any good,” Jared says calmly.

And Jensen can just stare at him.

“C'mere,” Jared adds, waving him over to the bed with a small smile.

As if he was remote-controlled, Jensen steps into the V of Jared's legs, wraps his arms around the taller man's shoulders. Jared pulls him in close, and because he's sitting, his head comes to rest on Jensen's chest. Placing a quick kiss on top of the fabric of Jensen's shirt, Jared snuggles into him, both of his long arms holding Jensen around his waist.

“Please don't tell me you're a cuddler,” Jensen grins.

Jared looks up at him then, which seems totally weird considering _Jensen_ usually has to look up to _him_. “Why, do I seem to be one?” he retorts cheekily.

Jensen just chuckles and holds him close.

“Besides,” Jared adds quickly with a wicked smile, “I can do the totally different part as well,” and with that, he lifts up Jensen's sweater, kisses and licks over the trained abs on Jensen's stomach. “Mmh, pretty nice.”

The implication of that combined with a heated glance from Jared is very clear.

But, truth be told, Jensen is not ready for this. Not at this point. So he laughs and thanks Jared as he gently shoves him away and readjusts his clothing.

After they kiss goodbye again, Jensen remembers that he still needs to know one more thing. “By the way, do you know when you will be discharged yet?”

“They said I'd need to stay here for at least another week, probably a few days more.”

“Do you know what you'll do afterwards? Go back to Chad's or... back home?” Jensen asks tentatively. He's not asking for the obvious, and he hopes Jared doesn't misunderstand him.

“I won't go back home. For now, I'll stay with Chad, although he has that crappy, really small one-bedroom in Harlem. But I think I'd like to stay in New York, despite everything. And now that I've got an even better reason than just inspiration to write here...” Jared grins before he leans up to kiss Jensen. “Yeah, I guess I'll have to look for an apartment after this.”

Jensen pumps his fist into the air before he kisses Jared again happily.

Before he leaves the hospital to call for Misha to pick him up, Jensen checks a timetable he has been seeing every day since he first stepped into the hospital.

And as soon as he's home and has fed Freckles, Jensen collects all the empty and half-empty bottles that are scattered throughout the whole apartment. He only keeps one bottle, which he puts on the top shelf of his living room closet. It's the expensive bottle of whiskey, and it will be his reminder, he decides.

The rest of the bottles get tossed into the trash can down in the street. It's hard to do this, hard to let go, but Jensen feels like Misha was right. He saved someone's life. Maybe that was a last warning for him to change his own life.

Back in his apartment, Jensen knows he won't sleep well or soon.

So he digs out his old laptop, starts up a new Word document, and begins typing.

 _Possible really gory plots for Jared_ , the title of the list reads.

The following week is basically a horror trip.

Staying sober isn't easy, far from it actually, and Jensen is challenged with the craving to drink every wake second. Luckily, he has his reasons to keep going. Reasons that are more than the fact that it's a healthier life choice.

The main one is obviously Jared, although Jensen is very aware that it's dangerous to focus on him like this. It's a slippery path he's walking right now.

But truth of the matter is, Jared makes him happy and distracts him.

When he brought his old laptop to the hospital – complete with a list of a couple visions he's had written out for Jared to use for his next novel – Jared kissed him senseless. He had been bored out of his skull when Jensen or Chad wasn't with him, so he was grateful for just _anything_ to do. And, apparently, it also worked for his writing muse. They got a lot discussing of Jared's characters and story lines to do when they were not watching football or lazily making out on the bed. So that part of Jensen's day really is the best.

Things get indefinitely worse once he's at home.

Jensen doesn't sleep, barely an hour per night if at all, and his mood is beyond shitty. Of course Jared does everything he can to cheer him up and get his mind off things, but it only works as long as Jared is with him, those few hours they have every evening. There's only so much Jared can do.

The alcohol withdrawal, to no surprise, hits Jensen hard. It makes him restless, nervous, and his hands have been shaking slightly for days now. The doctor Jensen consulted at the quick-care clinic of the hospital's ER said that it was about time for him to do something about his drinking problem, considering his liver must be severely damaged from decades of alcohol abuse. He had also advised for Jensen to partake in an AA meeting and handed him a list of groups in his neighborhood. 

“I think I'll try it on my own first,” Jensen replied, convinced that he was going to make it one way or another.

The doctor's eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “Are you sure? This is a serious matter, Mr. Ackles. Your body will react to the withdrawal with both physical and psychological symptoms, and it's not predictable to what degree you will experience them individually. Seeing as you weren't a level alcoholic at any time, you might get more of a problem with the mental side. Watch yourself at night, okay? Find a distraction, relax, start a new hobby. And think about the AA group.”

“Yes, I will,” Jensen confirmed with a nod.

When Jensen returns home at night, he's facing the biggest of his problems, just like the doctor presumed – how to spend the night. He doesn't remember what else he could do at this time of day. Sleep is, unfortunately, no option.

The first nights, he tried all the tricks he finds on the internet – distracting himself, going out for a run at the most ridiculous times, cleaning up his apartment, reading a book, surfing the internet until the early hours of the morning. It's driving him nuts. And on the following Monday night, he's finally reached a breaking point where he just doesn't know what to do any more.

So he calls Jared.

“Dude, why are you calling me at ass o'clock in the morning?” Jared yawns as soon as he picks up the phone. He sounds sleepy, but amused.

“Sorry. Couldn't sleep,” Jensen grumbles. That's the other part of it – he's grumpy, angry, and tries to suppress it, at least as long as he's around Jared. But it's the little things, especially at work, that manage to drive him up the walls in two seconds flat. And it pisses him off himself, which only doubles the effect. Jensen takes a deep breath to get a grip on himself and focuses on Jared on the phone.

“Mmh,” Jared mumbles lazily then. “Counted some sheep yet?”

“All of 'em,” Jensen answers, feels a smile tug at his lips at the question.

Jared huffs out a laugh, but then the line goes quiet for a few long moments. “Are you feeling okay?”

“You mean do I crave a drink? It could be worse, I guess. That bottle I kept still looks very inviting. But mostly I'm just bored and tired and I want to fucking go to sleep,” Jensen sighs heavily.

“Do something to relax, maybe? Uhm, take a bath?”

“Already showered.”

“Clean the kitchen?”

“Not a spot on the stove.”

“Then jerk off or something, for Christ's sake,” Jared laughs. He seems a bit off, his voice rough even through the tiny speaker.

“Nah, not in the mood,” the reply is accompanied by a soft smile.

“Mmh, I think I could do something about that,” Jared ponders. “Hey, what are you wearing?”

And that just makes Jensen laugh out loud. “Leave it, Jay. It's okay.”

“Just... please tell me that the guy I'm dating at least has some kind of libido?”

“He does,” Jensen sighs. “But he told me he's got other things to worry about at the moment, too.”

After a short moment, Jared complains, “Man, that is so not cool.”

“Huh? Excuse me?”

“Stop the serious talk when I've got my dick in my hand, Jensen,” Jared says with obvious enjoyment, the words rolling low off his tongue.

Jensen stares for a short second and blinks. “Dude, you... what?”

A sigh meets him from the other end of the line. “I've been here for almost two weeks without even being able to _touch_ myself. And I am just human, you know. And now that it's night and the nurse was just here on her rounds, and I've got you on the phone – I'm sorry. But I'm just incredibly horny right now.”

The words, spoken in a deep, husky tone, practically make Jensen's toes curl. Maybe he should give it a try? “Uhm, okay,” he answers instead and curses himself inwardly for sounding like an inexperienced teenager.

Jared chuckles seductively. “C'mon, Jen. It'll help you relax. And me too.”

“No doubt about that, it's just... I lost pretty much any interest in sex during the past few months... or years, I guess. So I'm pretty rusty, I don't know if-”

“Dude,” Jared says, the grin obvious in his voice although he gets a bit more serious. “I didn't expect anything else, and if you don't want to do this, I can't force you. So-”

“It's not like I don't want to, Jared,” Jensen says quietly, interrupting the other one.

“Good. But can we leave the serious stuff now? Really not my type of dirty talk.”

“Then what is?”

“What is what?”

“Your kind of dirty talk.”

There's a beat before Jared replies with a smirk behind the words, “Do you know I'm looking forward to the day I'll get to see you naked? Apart from the obvious, I have a confession to make. I really, really have a thing for sucking cock. And imagining having my mouth all around yours is pretty much my favorite fantasy at the moment.”

Jensen swallows heavily. “That so,” he answers for a lack of something better to say. Apparently, he's indeed rusty.

“Mhm. You know what's even hotter? Thinking about how you'd react to it. I bet your moans alone could make me come, Jensen. I bet you're not a quiet one in bed.”

“You're not wrong there, I’ll give you that,” Jensen confirms amused, his free hand idly laying on his belly.

“... You're not touching yourself right now, am I right?” Jared asks, his tone a bit disappointed.

“Nope, how did you know?”

“You make it obvious. But would you humor me for a second? Are you left- or right-handed in this case?” Jared asks with a sigh.

“Left,” Jensen says. Years of watching internet porn will do that to you.

“Huh,” Jared chuckles again. “Let me guess, right hand is for the mouse?”

A grin spreads slowly on Jensen's lips. “Fine, you win,” he says and slips his left hand underneath the waistband of his pajama pants. His cock is half-hard and resting on his lower abdomen. Jensen only touches it lightly, wraps his thumb and index finger around the base. He doesn't stroke it just yet, merely teases his balls with the fingers he has spread out above them.

“That mean you've finally got your cock in your hand?” Jared asks, sounding a bit breathless.

“It does.”

“Then why don't you give it a nice, long stroke from me? Base to top, but don't touch the head,” Jared orders.

Feeling strangely self-aware, Jensen does as he is asked. And yes, it doesn't feel half bad, of course it doesn't. But he must have given something away, because Jared adds immediately, “Do it again. Don't stop.” He's breathing audibly, and listening to Jared as he pleasures himself does more to Jensen than he would have thought. “You got a confession for me, too?”

Jensen lets his hand roll up the length of his cock again and sighs. “Kinda. I like it a lot quicker than this.”

Jared's laugh at this is nothing but dirty. “Who doesn't? It's just teasing, come on. How about we go all the way up with the next move?”

“No objections,” Jensen says and does as Jared suggested. Really, it's been a long time since he did this, but that only makes it one hell of a lot better. Jensen would lie if he said he didn't like the way he slowly jerks his dick right now, and touching the sensitive head sends a bolt of hot need through him every time. Jensen’s dick is fully hard by now, curving upwards towards his belly, and laying heavily in his hand. “Jared...” he half-breathes, half-moans then, “Top or bottom?” he asks simply.

“Not averse to either, although I tend to top more,” Jared's grin is obvious in his voice.

It's catching, and Jensen chuckles before he answers. “Perfect.”

“Mh?”

“Reversible here, too. Although I like bottoming better,” Jensen explains, moaning silently on the upstroke.

Jared sounds a bit hesitant and sheepish when he says, “Just a suggestion... but seeing as we're both reversible, maybe I'll bottom for the first few times, if you don't mind. If you've been out of the game for a while, that might... might be better.”

“What makes you think that?” Honestly, Jensen couldn't think of why that would make sense. With a little time and practice and lube, everything has been possible up until now.

Jared coughs, “Not to sound smug here, but I'm pretty proportionate all over. Go figure. It has been a problem before.”

Jensen stops his movements for a short moment, opens his mouth to say something but closes it again quickly. So, okay, Jared has a big cock. Which leaves Jensen with a watering mouth and the acute urge to see, not just imagine him naked. He swallows around the lump in his throat. “Oh,” he says intelligently before adding a deep, sighed “ _Oooh,_ ” with emphasis.

“Now that sounded appreciative,” Jared chuckles.

“That's 'cause it was meant appreciatively.”

Jared's amused voice is smooth as silk when he responds with, “Someone's got a size kink here?”

“Maybe a bit?” Jensen offers hesitantly. He resumes pleasuring himself lazily, enjoying the simple fact that his cock is hard and he's genuinely aroused.

Jared's answering low laugh goes straight to Jensen's dick. “Great we cleared that up,” he says, “So, next confession. If you're into finger-fucking, I'm totally your guy. And fair warning... I'm patient. I can do that shit for hours until you're begging me to let you come.”

Jensen flat-out groans at the mental image that settled into his head at Jared's words. Him, naked, spread out on his bed, Jared's fingers deep within him, stroking over his prostate on every thrust, scissoring him, running along his rim, and repeat...

“Seems like you like the idea,” Jared grins through the phone.

“You could say that,” Jensen laughs lightly, but knows it's time for revenge. “I guess it's my turn to confess now. If you want to know a thing of mine, if I can call it that... that would be cowgirl position. I just like having control over someone, even if I'm the one bottoming.”

He waits a few moments, hears Jared's heavy pants through his cell phone, followed by a lust-filled moan. “God, Jensen. You're killing me here.”

Jensen smiles wickedly to himself. “You stroking yourself faster?”

“I'm not stroking anything at all, I don't want to come yet,” Jared breathes out quickly, and damn if that wasn't what Jensen wanted to hear. The meaning makes him all the more hot and bothered all over.

Sighing lightly, Jensen works his hand up and down faster and adds a roll of his wrist at the head. He knows this will make him come with only a few more strokes. “Why not?”

“You close yet?”

“Pretty much.”

“Wanna hear you come first, Jen. Need to hear you moan so pretty again,” Jared's voice is a deep rumble, smooth and seductive. “And as soon as I'm out of here, I'll take you up on what you said. God, you riding me... guh.” The chocked-off, needy sound at the end makes a flare of heat sear through Jensen, makes him tighten his grip around the girth of his cock and move quicker and harder.

He's on the edge and over it in no time, and Jared, who obviously got in on the action again, is panting and moaning into his ear.

“Jared,” he breathes heavily, “I think I'm gonna-”

“Yeah, do it. C'mon. Let me hear you, don't hold back,” Jared whispers urgently.

And with one last stroke up the full length of his dick, Jensen comes hard. Hot, white spurts are hitting him across his chest and belly as the muscles in his whole body clench and unclench repeatedly with the waves of his orgasm. He doesn't hold back the long, deep groan that accompanies it, makes sure it's going straight into the microphone of his phone.

When Jensen sags back into the pillows of his bed, panting and gasping for air, Jared's breathing has become erratic, too. “Same goes for you,” Jensen says, his voice rough from moaning. “I just came so hard, Jared, just because of you and your voice. Wanna hear you, too. Wanna hear what you sound like when you're shooting all over yourself.”

In that moment, a short gasp from Jared tells Jensen that he's right where he wants him to be.

“And once we've got the time, I'm gonna ride you until you forget your own name,” he adds with a smirk.

An uncontrolled, long moan from his cell tells Jensen all he needs to know.

He smiles to himself as he waits for Jared to calm down.

“God, that was necessary,” Jared says, still out of breath.

Jensen grins. “Same here.”

Jared's chuckle is warm and the sound sends a tingle down Jensen's spine. “Feeling better?”

“A lot,” Jensen answers without hesitation. It's true.

“I'm sticky all over. And I've got jizz on my bandage. Gross,” Jared comments. “I'll go get washed up.”

“Yeah, me too. I'll see you tomorrow.”

“You will. Goodnight, Jensen,” Jared's gentle words are as sweet as honey and dripping with affection.

“G'night, Jare,” Jensen replies with a fond smile. After shutting down his phone, Jensen puts it onto the bedside table, watching as the display dims down and casts the bedroom into darkness.

His left hand is covered in cooling come and that is so not sexy.

With a heavy sigh, Jensen rolls out of bed and lazily drags his feet to the bathroom.

The last time he even had an orgasm was while jerking off to a crappy amateur porn video on the internet while he was drunk. Ironically, the thought makes him smile.

It's 3 a.m. and Jensen is still not tired. Sated, but not tired.

The urge to have a drink is suddenly overwhelmingly strong, hitting Jensen unexpectedly. Well, one drink wouldn't hurt, right? Just one. He'd stop after that. But he feels like celebrating and he's still riding the high wave of his orgasm.

On his way back from the bathroom, Jensen makes a detour and takes the bottle of expensive whiskey with himself.

Freckles eyes him warily, like he knows where this is heading.

An hour later, Jensen finds himself sitting on the floor beside his bed, the empty bottle in his hands.

Freckles pounces on him as if he sensed that Jensen had just ruined all his resolutions, but settles eventually with his head against Jensen's thigh.

Jensen isn't even drunk yet. The shaking of his hands has stopped, though, but he feels close to crying. All his efforts during the last few days, all the forced control, gone to shit. Just peachy.

It's not even an option that he's not telling Jared, as ashamed as he feels right now. If he's doing this, if he's taking a chance with Jared, then he's going to do it honestly.

Ignoring the cat at his side, Jensen pushes himself up to his feet, goes straight to the kitchen and dumps the bottle with too much force. It shatters with a loud clash in the trash bin.

He has a decision to make.

When Jensen leaves for work the following morning, the hangover isn't all that bad. Jensen didn't even have to take any painkillers. Well, he didn't have much to drink, either. At least by his standards. What drags him down more is the guilt and the disappointment in himself.

He stops short in his tracks when he meets his neighbor, Eric, who's pinning a sign to his door. Eric has been living right across the hall from Jensen's apartment for three years now, and he's a nice guy. A balding investment banker in his mid-forties, but a nice guy despite the reputation of his job.

“Morning, Eric,” he greets the man with a smile. “What are you doing there?”

“Morning,” Eric answers, smiling slightly back at Jensen. “Just informing you lot that I'm gonna move out by the end of the month. I have to move back home to my parents.”

Jensen draws his eyebrows together in a frown. “Anything happened?”

“Not really. You know, my mom has been sick for quite some time, and she and my dad... they aren't that fit any more. So I gotta help them out. That's what family is for, right?” he sighs as he turns towards his flat. “I'm gonna miss the big city, though. And this apartment.”

“What are you gonna do with it?” Jensen asks, a sudden idea flashing through his mind.

“Putting it up for rent. I don't even know if I'll ever live here again, but I'd like to have the option.”

“Mh, Eric... question – as your long-term neighbor, could you give me a day or two to clear something up? I might have someone who needs a flat. And how much will it be per month?”

Eric smiles. “To be fair, I'd really have a cleaner conscience if it was someone you liked, so, of course you've got two days. Just let me know.” And then he pulls out a notepad and scribbles a number and price down before he hands the piece of paper to Jensen.

“So you had a relapse,” Jared sums it up. His hand is idly rubbing circles onto the small of Jensen's back.

Jensen nods weakly and looks at him with a worried frown. He doesn't know if he should feel more guilty for breaking the promise he gave to himself or for being too weak and giving in, making all his effort throughout the last days meaningless. Back to square one it is. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

“I feel like shit,” Jensen states quietly.

And Jared, greatest person to ever live, just wraps him up in his arms and holds him close. For minutes. Doesn't ask insulting questions, doesn't push. Offers comfort just by being there, kissing Jensen's temple softly and running his hands up and down Jensen's back.

“Do you have a plan?” he asks eventually.

“I do,” Jensen answers with a sigh. It's true. He had a plan a week ago already; it's just that he was so sure he'd make it on his own. That he, like every alcoholic thinks, could stop any time he wanted. Well, turns out he doesn't. That result is kinda anti-climactic.

After long minutes of just enjoying Jared's warmth and proximity, Jensen smiles lopsided. “On a more positive note and for something completely different, I think I've got an apartment for you.”

**EPILOGUE - 1 MONTH LATER**

Jared hauls the last of his moving boxes onto the pile in what is assigned to be the living room some day, right when Jensen steps through the open door. With a deep sigh, Jared claps his hands triumphantly.

“Last one?” Jensen asks, a smirk playing around his lips as he leans against the door frame.

It's only then that Jared notices him. “Oh, you're home!” he states the obvious, smiles widely and takes the few steps towards Jensen.

Jensen is still amazed when he sees Jared like this, all gloriously built 6'4'' towering over him, having him look up at and blink into Jared's blinding grin. His hair is sticking to his forehead, and he's dripping with sweat from all the physical exertion of the day. Jensen reaches up to brush a strand back behind his ear and smiles lovingly.

Wrapping one arm around Jensen's waist, Jared pulls him close to kiss him. “How was your meeting?”

Jensen's lips quirk into a lopsided, bitter smile. “Exhausting, as always.”

“Not too exhausting, I hope?” Jared asks with a wink.

“Dude-” Jensen laughs, but gets interrupted by Jared softly pinning him against the wall behind him and kissing him breathless. Somehow, he manages to work his leg in between Jensen's, trapping him there.

“I still remember what I promised you,” Jared grins against Jensen's lips.

Jensen raises his eyebrows teasingly. “Oh, you mean the, and I quote, 'Night of your life, as soon as I've moved in here'?”

“Exactly that.”

“Aren't Misha and Chad still here?”

Jared shakes his head. “I kicked them out after they almost wrecked my new couch. Well, and because we were pretty much done here for today.”

Taking a look around the place that's littered with both empty and still-packed boxes, Jensen gives him a meaningful look. “Did you even fix up the bed already?”

“Yes, we did,” Jared nods enthusiastically. “And the best part is, the mattress is still wrapped in plastic,” he adds and waggles his eyebrows suggestively.

Jensen punches his shoulder lightly. “Forget it. My place it is.” And with that, he turns around to leave for his own apartment across the hall.

They’ve only known each other for barely two months now, but Jensen can already tell they are working out pretty much perfectly. He feels comfortable around Jared, doesn't need to pretend to be somebody else or doesn't need to feel awkward when a vision decides to come around. Still, it wasn't an option for Jensen to offer Jared to move in with him just yet. Way too soon for that, although Jensen can see them there at some point in the future.

Jared locks up after leaving the apartment and takes Jensen's hand in his on the few steps to Jensen's place.

It still makes Jensen blush.

It's been so long since he had something like this, something like a relationship, that Jensen has forgotten about a lot of stuff. About how it is to have someone around to watch TV with or make out with or just kiss them randomly, whenever you feel like it. Or taking someone's hand when he needs it. And he dares to say that right now, he's pretty happy.

It's only been one month and it hasn't exactly been easy. While Jared's recovery went well and he'd been discharged sooner than expected, Jensen is still going through the first, really rough patch of overcoming his drinking problems. _Alcoholism,_ Jensen corrects himself. He has to call it by its name, not play it down, that's what they said.

The day Jared had been discharged, he had asked Jensen beforehand if he could pick him up at the hospital. And Jensen had thought that was just so he could help him with his luggage as Jared was still advised not to heft anything. It had turned out as something way different, something Jensen had feared from the very beginning. The second they went down to the subway station, Jared had begun to shake, had clutched at the nearest available hand railing. He was terrified to use the subway, and with good reason. Despite his usual cheery, optimistic personality, this every-day setting shook him to his core. Jensen had to talk him through it, held his hand unashamed, no matter how much the people around them stared at them. On the subway train itself, Jared had immediately retreated to a corner right beside the door, and Jensen had taken a protective position right in front of him, blocking anybody that came near Jared with his body. By the end of the subway ride, they stood there with their arms wrapped around each other, Jared fisting his hands in the fabric of Jensen's jacket, the shaking having turned to soft tremors rolling through Jared's muscles repeatedly. That way, they made it.

“I'm so glad I have you,” Jared said afterwards on the platform, his eyes shining wetly as he wrapped Jensen up in one of his trademark bear hugs.

And Jensen simply smiled, because he was relieved and grateful more than anything else in that very moment. And then he had kissed Jared, right there, in front of everyone, and they couldn't have cared less. As a matter of fact, they both weren't perfect, they both had their problems and issues - and visions - but they were managing it and helping each other managing it.

Some part of Jensen believes that they are soulmates. And the thought, to Jensen's amazement, isn't making him cringe because it's cheesy to say. It just feels accurate and not the least bit weird.

Jared wraps his arms around Jensen's waist as he unlocks the door, effectively pulling him out of his musings. By the time the door is open, they're stumbling into the hallway half-entangled in an open-mouthed kiss, Jared's hands tugging at Jensen's jacket and the shirt underneath impatiently.

They haven't had sex yet. Sure, the phone sex had occurred again, mainly because Jared had still been in the hospital or was afterwards stuck at Chad's place up in Harlem. And, once, quick handjobs exchanged in the kitchen of Jensen's apartment, that first time he got to show his place to Jared.

But if they're doing this now, they're going all the way.

“Jay, hey,” Jensen interrupts Jared's frantic tugging at every piece of offensive clothing, “Hey. You wanna shower first?”

Jared pulls away, then, looking down at his clothes. “Considering I'm all sweaty and dusty from moving boxes and furniture around all day, that's probably a good idea. But, I've got one condition-” he raises his hand, watching Jensen expectantly.

“Yes, I'll come with you,” Jensen grins.

Jared throws his head back and laughs. “Thanks for reminding me why you're my boyfriend,” he says fondly before placing a short, loving peck on Jensen's lips.

“Boyfriend, huh?” Jensen smirks.

“Well, if you're-”

“I'm completely on board with that.”

Jared exhales audibly and chuckles relieved. “Thought I almost took it too far. Anyway,” he adds with a shooing gesture, “Why are you still dressed, Mr. Boyfriend? Off to the bathroom with you!”

Jensen laughs as well before he takes a step back, out of Jared's reach. Deliberately slowly and with a smug smile, he opens the buttons of his shirt, one by one until it hangs loose from his shoulders and he can push it off. Next is the button and zipper of his jeans, which he then proceeds to step out of, leaving him only in his boxer briefs. All the while, Jensen has steadily stepped back towards the bathroom, Jared's eyes focused hungrily on him, devouring the sight in front of him. Finally, Jensen slips his socks off and turns around, presenting his backside to Jared and smirking over his shoulder.

“Fuck, you're a tease,” Jared groans from behind him.

“Better you find out now than later,” Jensen smiles as he reaches into the shower stall to start the water spray.

He didn't see Jared move from the corners of his eyes, but suddenly he's standing right against Jensen's back. His large palms and fingers are curled around Jensen's hips, digging into the skin over his hipbones. His breath comes out harsh and ragged, which Jensen notices as Jared begins to nibble and bite down gently at the lobe of his ear.

Jensen's hard cock rubs uncomfortably against the fabric of his boxers, but he chooses to ignore it for now.

Instead, he turns around in Jared's arms and works his hands underneath Jared's well-worn and threadbare t-shirt, pulling it up. Reluctantly, Jared lets go of him and strips out of it, revealing defined muscles on his chest and stomach and arms and- a happy trail that leads down into his jeans. At this point, Jensen is the equivalent of a potato, two seconds away from drooling all over himself and Jared. Because damn, he expected Jared to be built and muscular, but this... this is basically his every wet dream come true.

He places both of his hands flat on Jared's chest and swallows hard. The scar of the wound is still visible, of course, an angry red cut on Jared's right side. Jensen reaches out and gently places his palm over it. Jared sucks in a harsh breath, but doesn't wince.

“It doesn't hurt,” he reassures Jensen.

Jensen smiles, but his voice shakes a little as he answers, “You know, while it's still tragic how it got there, the scar will always remind me how we met. Forgive me for getting sentimental about it.”

Reciprocating the smile, Jared leans down to kiss him languidly, the lingering touch making Jensen's spine tingle. When Jensen begins to roam over Jared's upper body with both hands, exploring and tracking the bulges of muscle and tanned skin, he is rewarded with a low moan and a light bite to his bottom lip. Jared sucks it into his mouth and licks over the place where he bit down before, his ministrations on the tender flesh sending waves of pleasure through Jensen's body. And Jensen is lost completely as soon as Jared licks into his mouth with firm strokes of his tongue, is left moaning helplessly into Jared's open mouth and chasing his tongue with his own.

And suddenly, Jared is not the impatient one anymore.

Jensen's fingers make quick work of Jared's belt buckle and zipper, and Jensen traces the happy trail down with his index finger before he pops the button. Jared's jeans fall off his hips at the lack of fastening, and then he's gasping when Jensen slides his hand down the back of his boxers, grabbing his ass firmly.

The boxers follow the pair of jeans onto the floor.

Jared watches them go before he carefully looks up at Jensen, opening his arms to present himself in all of his naked glory. And now, Jensen is definitely gaping.

Because _holy fucking shit_. There's nothing more to say.

Jensen just falls to his knees and has Jared's cock in his mouth within seconds. And wow, Jared wasn't lying about its size. Jensen feels the strain of his lips where they stretch around the girth of Jared's cock, the thick head resting heavy against Jensen's tongue. All he can do is suck it down until it hits the back of his throat and moan, because it feels blissfully right to have his mouth stuffed full of cock like this.

A gasp from above makes Jensen look up. Jared is leaning against the shower door with one hand, panting and trying to hold his balance. “Didn't we want to shower first? Not that I'm complaining, but-”

Jensen pulls off for a second, lets Jared's cock slip out of his mouth, but answers with his lips still against the head. “Sure, let me just...” he trails off, runs his tongue flat around the tip of Jared's dick before mouthing and nibbling down the length of it until he reaches the base. Jensen licks once across Jared's balls and notices the moan it elicits from Jared with proud amusement. He licks back up along the underside and closes his lips once more around the head, sucking his way down until he's got Jared all the way down his throat, his nose bumping into Jared's trimmed pubic hair.

“Oh my god,” Jared moans breathlessly.

Well, if that isn't Jensen's cue.

He quickly retreats, sucking Jared through it, and subsequently gets to his feet. Jensen's eyes find Jared's. He smirks while he pulls down his boxer briefs deliberately slowly and steps into the shower. Jared is left gasping after him, but eventually follows him under the spray and closes the door behind him.

“Tease,” Jared says with a disapproving smirk and shakes his head.

“You like it,” Jensen counters. His laugh gets muffled by Jared's mouth on his, kissing him with unabashed desire as the warm water runs over their bodies.

Every touch, every line of a fingertip grazing along muscle, every time their mouths clash is electrifying, making Jensen shiver and sigh. He feels lightheaded and high on the cocktail of hormones that runs through his body. Like Jared is his drug and he just can't get enough of him. Wrapping his arm around Jared's narrow waist again, Jensen pulls their bodies flush together, enjoys the friction of their cocks meeting and rubbing against each other's. Jared moans into his mouth at the movement, but quickly retreats after that.

At the loss of skin on skin contact, Jensen groans frustrated and falls forward. His head rests on Jared's shoulder now, and god does he appreciate the fact that Jared is taller than him. With a chuckle, Jared reaches over his head to get the bottle of shower gel. Jensen can smell it, his usual, as Jared pours some into his hand.

Gently, Jared shoves Jensen off and kisses him briefly on the lips. He proceeds by spreading the foam on Jensen's chest, running his hands over pale skin and muscles, and pinches Jensen's nipple in-between.

Jensen groans again. He's admittedly two seconds away from climbing the walls. “Now you're a fucking tease.”

“Oh, you have no idea,” Jared smirks. With that and a cheeky wink, he drops his right hand down to Jensen's dick, wraps his fingers around the base and uses the slippery body wash to stroke it slowly.

Jensen is desperate at this point, too riled up by Jared's kisses and his hands all over him – the left hand is still busy with rolling the hardened nub of his nipple through its fingers. On instinct, he deepens the kiss, nudges Jared's lips apart with his tongue to lick along the row of teeth. It's too hot and water is running over both their faces and they aren't getting enough air, but it's perfect like this. The water spray washes away all the foam from Jensen's body, and when he's ready to just thrust into Jared's hand to finally come, Jared stops.

Jensen is leaning back against the tiled wall, panting heavily and watching Jared with hooded eyes as he bends down and licks over Jensen's collar bone. A blissful moan escapes Jensen's lips as Jared goes down, licks over his chest and sucks shortly on his nipple on the way. Next is his belly button, where Jared dips his tongue before he reaches Jensen's groin.

Wide-blown pupils look up at him then, framed in a mix of swirling blue and green that's sparkling with lust. Without breaking eye contact, Jared wraps his mouth around Jensen's cock and sucks him down in a single move.

And Jensen is rendered speechless, drops his head back against the wall and lets out a loud moan that bounces off the walls in the bathroom.

Jared hadn't been kidding about how much he liked sucking cock, either. His passion and enthusiasm is visible and notable with every stroke of his tongue across the head, with every moan around Jensen's dick as soon as he's buried balls deep in his throat. He smiles and sighs when he lets the head pop out of his mouth just to circle his tongue around the sensitive glans. Two fingers around the base of Jensen's cock hold him in place as Jared begins to bop his head up and down the length of it, his mouth wet and hot and the pace just right.

It has been a while for Jensen, even though he got to jerk off a few times in the past weeks.

And it doesn't get easier for him to hold back any longer when Jared's second hand trails back down behind his balls. Jared's fingertips, wet from the warm water of the spray, caress his entrance gently before one fingertip is pressed to the middle of the muscle, easing it open. Jensen gasps, remembering that feeling all too well and fuck, he wants it so damn much right now. Despite the fact that they don’t have any lube around.

“C'mon, I won't break,” he says roughly.

Jared chuckles around the dick in his mouth before carefully and slowly shoving his finger in further. It feels weird, like it does every time, Jensen thinks; but as soon as Jared is in far enough to reach his prostate, that thought is long forgotten.

Jensen groans out only once, that first time Jared's fingertip runs over his prostate and makes his hips piston forwards, burying himself balls deep in Jared's mouth. The wave of pleasure at the touch is so intense that Jensen almost loses it right there. And Jared just takes it, even grins a little around Jensen's cock, licks approvingly along the underside where it's resting on his tongue.

“Jare, god, I can't-- I'm gonna come,” Jensen moans out, placing one hand on top of Jared's head to push him back off.

Jared nods and retreats slowly, inch by inch, sucking heavily on Jensen's dick on the way. It's just about in time when he reaches the head and closes his hand around the shaft, stroking firmly. His finger is still idly massaging Jensen's prostate within him.

With a final, loud moan, Jensen comes. His orgasm makes his muscles contract repeatedly, makes him shiver as he shoots all over Jared's hair and face. Funny enough, Jensen's first thought afterwards is how they haven't washed Jared's hair yet. He begins to laugh, and Jared grins at him widely through eyelashes that have Jensen's come drip off of them in dirty white drops. After gently easing his finger out from Jensen's body – and making him groan again in the process, his dick even giving an interested twitch – Jared tries to wipe the sticky fluid away with the back of his hand.

Quickly, Jensen reaches for the shower head and says quietly, “Close your eyes,” washing Jared clean before he drops to his knees and straddles Jared's hips. The kiss they share is slow and hot, urgent on Jared's side and calming on Jensen's. The taste of himself is still lingering on Jared's tongue. However, when the water running over them is cutting them off from air for too long, Jensen breaks the kiss to stand up and pulls Jared with him.

The next few minutes are spent with Jensen returning the favor of washing Jared's body – those muscles and, mostly, that huge dick are still making his mouth water – including his hair, making sure there's no leftover jizz drying into the strands. Although it turns out more like a massage, Jared is more than happy about it.

“Jen, I swear,” he moans as Jensen runs his hands flat through his clean hair, standing behind Jared, “The moment I get my hands on you...”

“Yes?” Jensen teases and places a kiss on Jared's neck for emphasis. “Gotta catch me first,” he adds and slips out of the shower to dry himself off.

A frustrated groan from Jared follows him. It takes Jared a moment to reorient, turn off the spray and step out as well, where Jensen is waiting for him with a towel.

Wordlessly, Jared pushes the hand with the towel aside and pulls Jensen into his still-wet chest to kiss him. Jensen's protest gets muffled against Jared's lips, against Jared's tongue that opens him up and licks against his tongue until he's breathless. Barely managing to throw his towel around Jared to dry him off at least a bit, Jensen kisses back with all he has. And to his surprise, he feels his dick fill with blood again, even though he just had a really intense orgasm.

Jared is the personification of impatience, though, his hands roaming everywhere over Jensen's body, over his torso and back down his spine and over his ass. And when Jared eventually grabs Jensen's hips and rolls his crotch against him, hard dicks sliding along and creating delicate and much needed friction, Jensen groans with unabashed desire.

Apparently, that's it for Jared.

He firmly puts his hands on Jensen's shoulder and hip and pushes him back towards the bedroom. Jensen can't see anything, but when he feels the mattress of his bed hit the back of his calves, he lets himself fall back into the sheets and takes Jared with him. They land on the bed in a heap of limbs, still partly wet, and entangled in each other. Jared laughs before his lips find Jensen's again, and for a few minutes, kissing is all they do.

Because this is something they know how to do, laying on a bed together and making out like teenagers. Except for the fact that they are naked this time, of course. But even though Jared had known before how to drive Jensen crazy just by kissing him, all those little bites and licks and expert teasing - this takes it to a whole new level. Before he even realizes it, Jensen is back to full hardness and Jared notices it with a dirty grin.

“Shut up,” Jensen says with an amused smirk.

Then he decides to take matters in his own hands, because Jared enjoys this way too much to have him pliant underneath his hands. Jensen pushes up and makes Jared sit against the wall at the head of his bed, pushes a cushion between his back and the wall. “Stay here,” Jensen orders.

Jared watches him curiously as he rolls over to his bedside table and gets the supplies. He even had to buy new condoms because his old ones had, sadly, expired. Not that he wouldn't have needed the extra large ones anyway. With a condom package in one hand and the bottle of lube in the other, Jensen turns to Jared again.

“Do you want to prepare me or should I...?” Jensen leaves the sentence unfinished, a lopsided grin on his lips.

Jared's eyes drop to half-mast in a matter of seconds, and he groans. “As much as that picture turns me on right now, there's another time for that. Let me.”

Placing the lube in Jared's hand and holding the condom package nearby for when they'd need it, Jensen shoots him an expectant look. “How do you want to do it?”

“Come here,” Jared says, patting his lap with his spare hand. “Your back towards me.”

Jensen quickly does as he's asked, places his knees on either side of Jared's hips.

“Now lean forward,” Jared adds.

And wow, he's really on the silver platter here, but he kind of likes it. Jared's breath is ragged and harsh behind him, his skin hot where it brushes against Jensen's. A large hand is placed on Jensen's ass cheek, kneading the flesh. The click that follows Jensen knows, it's from the bottle of lube, and the second palm joins the first a few seconds later. The lube is still quite cold where it meets the sensitive skin around his hole, and Jensen hisses in response. Jared's hand runs up to his lower back, keeping him in place and rubbing idle circles into his skin.

“Sorry, it'll warm up soon,” he apologizes, his voice hoarse.

“You better make it,” Jensen grins over his shoulder.

Jared doesn't answer, just shoots him an unfazed expression and lets his index finger slip into Jensen's entrance to the second knuckle. Taken momentarily by surprise, Jensen gasps, but it doesn't hurt. There's more than enough lube to ease the way and after all, he's just had a finger up there.

“Remember when I said I could fuck you with my fingers all day?” Jared says, and the implication makes Jensen shiver.

The finger begins to move, rubbing over Jensen's prostate as it gets shoved in deeper, and Jensen arches instinctively into the touch, welcoming the intrusion. Jared withdraws it almost completely after that, just to quickly repeat the motion. After a few more times, he's got fistfuls of the bed sheets in his hands and is moaning without restraint. It's too intense, the pace too maddeningly slow and delicious, and he doesn't care just how smug Jared's grin is behind him.

“You like that,” Jared notes amused, resting his finger for a moment to press the tip against Jensen's prostate.

Jensen spares him an answer and instead lets himself fall forward, face buried in the sheets as a long moan drops from his lips.

“That was a really pretty moan, Jen, I think you deserve a little reward for that,” and with that, Jared removes his finger. Jensen groans frustrated at the loss of contact, but the finger is replaced by two pressing past his muscle in a matter of seconds.

It's more than he has taken for years, but his first orgasm and Jared's gentle touches have opened him up easily. Point is, the two fingers glide into him painlessly.

“Oh my god,” Jensen moans out breathlessly, pushing against the fingers in order to take them in deeper. “Fuck.”

And Jared, smug bastard that he is, doesn't let him, withdraws his fingers to the first knuckle and works them in with slow, shallow thrusts that drive Jensen mad. The stretch is just right, the fingers stimulating his prostate lightly at every thrust, and Jensen knows with surprising clarity that he would come right this second if Jared just touched his dick.

But he doesn't.

Instead, Jared pushes the two fingers slightly apart, scissors Jensen open, and chuckles at the desperate moan it elicits from Jensen. The minutes that follow seem like hours to Jensen; his sensations are reduced to what Jared's fingers do to him, opening him up with so much patience. Jared's other hand is still laying on his lower back, holding on to him firmly, while the other is thrusting into him, again and again, making him moan every time he's buried in his ass all the way.

“You want more?” Jared asks then.

Sure that he means his cock, Jensen nods enthusiastically. “God, yes, please,” he answers, his voice rough and needy.

With another dirty laugh, Jared removes his hand, but uses it to hold Jensen open. One thumb slips into his loose entrance, followed by the opposite one from the other hand that's still resting on his cheek. Jensen feels exposed, opened up wide, and when the second thumb slips into him as well, he's so riled up that he's almost coming untouched. Almost. His chest is rising and falling quickly, his heartbeat way too fast, and Jared notices very well.

“Oh no, that is not how we're doing this,” he grins and withdraws both thumbs. And leaves Jensen gaping open and moaning and wanting more.

“God, I hate you,” Jensen manages to cough.

“It's worth the wait, I promise,” Jared replies. Then his hands return, with three fingers pressing against Jensen's entrance, and he takes it easily.

And finally – finally - Jared lets slip how much he's affected by this, too. He moans at the sight in front of him, his hips jerking involuntarily. Jensen feels his hard dick brush against his upper thigh and a soundless sigh tickles the skin on his lower back.

“Have you any idea how hot you look right now, Jen? All spread out and ready for me to take you. God, your ass-” Jared praises, and slaps said part of Jensen's anatomy softly for emphasis, “- I could come just looking at you like this.”

Jensen laughs roughly. “I'd prefer if you'd come with your cock all the way up my ass,” he says with a chuckle.

Jared groans again, and Jensen hears the rustle of the condom package as Jared grabs it and rips it open with his teeth. Unfortunately, that also leads to the three fingers being removed in order to help Jared roll the condom over his cock. Jensen doesn't have much time complaining about the loss, though, as Jared quickly pulls him into a vertical position above his hips. With one hand placed on Jensen's hip, Jared pushes him down until Jensen feels the blunt head of Jared's dick nudge against his wet hole.

He slides down slowly, enjoying the fact that he's in charge for the first time in the past half hour. The girth of Jared's cock stretches him wide, and the strain hurts a bit until the head slips in. Jensen breathes in and out deeply a few times and lets the pain ebb out before he continues. Jared doesn't push, doesn't thrust upwards or shove Jensen down, just gives him all the time he needs. And by the time Jared is buried all the way in Jensen's ass, they're both a panting wreck. Jared leans forward against Jensen's back, wraps his arms around his waist and places kisses over his shoulder blades up to his neck.

“Missed this?” Jared whispers hoarsely.

“Fuck, yes,” Jensen answers and begins to slowly slide up and down on Jared's cock.

“Mmh, god, so good,” Jared sighs and bites into Jensen's shoulder lightly, “you feel so good around me. All hot and tight and-” he breaks off into a loud moan, rests his head against Jensen's shoulder.

Jensen is breathless, speechless, it's like he's drunk on the pleasure that Jared's cock and hands and body all around and inside him cause him. Every move is met by Jared's hips, buries him deeper and deeper into Jensen, and it's just too much for Jensen. A soft nudge against his hip makes Jensen turn around to Jared, not faltering in his movements.

A wide smile is spreading on Jared's lips, and Jensen cranes his neck and twists around so he can kiss him. “Come, if you want to,” Jared offers with a short lick across Jensen's bottom lip.

“Nah, want you to come first,” Jensen smirks over his shoulder and clenches his muscles at the next thrust.

Jared throws his head back, lips slack and hanging open, eyes screwed shut. With an even wider grin, Jensen does the exact same thing again, and Jared's hand around his hips tightens and holds him firmly in place. Hot puffs of air hit Jensen's neck as Jared starts with shallow, but quick jerks of his hips, perfectly hitting Jensen's prostate dead on every time.

A deep groan escapes Jensen's lips, and he feels how he looses control, can't hold the upcoming orgasm anymore. But, god, does he want to, just to feel Jared when he hits the edge and comes within him.

Right then, Jared bites lightly into the lobe of Jensen's ear again. “Fuck, I'm... so close,” he whispers.

“Then come,” Jensen smiles. “Please come, I won't last any longer either. Want to feel you come, Jared.”

Jared's little thrusts get harder, the grip around Jensen impossibly tighter, and with one final push and a deep sigh, Jared comes. He's shivering against Jensen's back, the waves shaking him repeatedly and making him jerk upwards a few more times, yet again right against Jensen's prostate.

And it's just too damn much, Jared's cock filling him up so good and hitting his prostate again and again, that Jensen eventually can't hold back either. He wraps his hand around his cock, and it takes him merely three strokes until he's coming all over his hand and the sheets.

Jared, the bastard, just laughs dirtily. “Would've loved to see your face, Jen,” he chuckles. “Next time?”

“Yes, next time,” Jensen says, reaches around his back to hold the condom before he slips off of Jared's cock. He feels boneless and sated and falls about as gracelessly as possible down onto the bed beside Jared.

When he looks up and meets Jared's eyes, the other man has that fond, affectionate spark in his eyes that has Jensen practically melting away. “What?” Jensen asks with a lopsided smile.

“Nothing. Just thinking.”

“About?”

Jared just shakes his head and turns away to pull the condom off, wraps it in a tissue and throws it somewhere on the floor beside the bed. “'m tired. Let's sleep,” he says instead, pulling Jensen into his arms as he settles under the covers.

And Jensen is far from complaining. Sleeping after sex probably holds his cravings at bay.

Until it doesn't.

While Jared is dozing off beside him, snoring lightly with one arm thrown across Jensen's stomach, Jensen lies awake. He keeps his eyes shut in order to fall asleep, but there's a deeper need curling in his stomach that makes him restless. It's night, and he just had sex, which is about the worst combination he could've chosen. Jensen figured not long ago that his fucked-up brain seems to relate sex to alcohol, maybe because he'd never been quite sober when he'd taken any of his past conquests home.

Night and especially sex equals alcohol in his brain.

The good thing is, Jensen has no booze whatsoever in his flat, and Jared doesn't, either. Jensen knows it.

Which doesn't help him fall asleep in the least.

Jensen opens his eyes, giving up on trying, and watches Jared carefully for a few moments. He appears to be asleep safe and sound, so Jensen gently picks the arm off of his stomach and rolls out of bed, trying not to make it shake too bad.

He finds his jeans discarded on the floor next to his bedside table and quickly grabs into the left pocket. When Jensen's fingers close around the round chip he searched for, he lets out a relieved breath.

 _You can do this, Jensen,_ he tells himself. _Think about what they said. Relax. Breathe._

He closes his eyes, does a few of his approved breathing exercises, and looses track of the time passing by completely. Only when he feels the mattress shake, a soft thud of a hand patting the sheets and a confused grumble, Jensen turns around.

“Jen?” Jared asks, squinting when he notices Jensen sitting on the edge of the bed. Without further ado, Jared rolls over to the other side and sits down beside Jensen. A short kiss is placed on Jensen's naked shoulder. “What are you doing up? Couldn't sleep?”

Tiredly, Jensen shakes his head.

“Is it bad?” Jared asks worriedly.

Jensen swallows and nods. God, the things he'd do for a shot of whiskey right now. Even though every cell of his brain craves it, he also knows that he wouldn't give into that urge even if he had the opportunity. Even if he had any whiskey at home, he wouldn't. Jensen's hand clenches around the chip in his hand, the edges digging into his palm. He will get through this.

An arm is placed across his back to his other shoulder. Gratefully, Jensen leans his head against Jared's shoulder and sighs.

Then Jared notices the way his hand is balled into a fist around something. “What've you got there?” he asks softly.

Jensen looks up at him to find curious, concerned eyes watching him. His eyes drop to his fist, and he opens it slowly, revealing a red, round chip. “One month sobriety chip,” Jensen says, not without pride. It's only a token, but holding on to it helps him incredibly. As does holding on to Jared.

Shaggy brown hair falls into Jared's sharply cut face as he leans down to meet Jensen at eye level. He raises his spare hand and uses it to tip Jensen's chin up to look at him. The smile on his face is small, but his eyes are shining in the dim moonlight that falls through the window. “I'm proud of you, Jensen,” he answers and kisses Jensen lovingly. “You know that, right?”

“I do,” Jensen smiles back.

“Good. Then come to bed, okay?” Jared doesn't wait for an answer, just pulls Jensen back onto the bed and throws the comforter over both their still-naked bodies.

“Goodnight,” he says and places another peck on Jensen's lips.

“'night,” Jensen replies quietly.

They are both lying on their sides, facing each other, and Jared's hand is yet again placed across Jensen's back, holding him close. Their lips meet again in a languid, lazy kiss, nothing fancy, just a dry press of lips. Short nibbles and gentle touches that turn slower and longer until their eyes fall shut and Jensen feels himself drift off into sleep, with the taste of Jared still on his lips and the chip still clutched in his fist.

Jensen wakes up with his cock in Jared's mouth. It's hot and wet and the perfect wake-up call.

Well, and one way to deal with morning wood.

Smiling to himself, Jensen blinks awake and finds Jared on his knees between Jensen's legs, watching him with a grin around the cock in his mouth.

“Good morning to you, too,” Jensen says. And realizes right then that for the first time in years, he had slept like a log, and he feels rested and fit and ready to face the day. It feels so good that Jensen can barely believe it.

Jared reminds him of his current situation with a firm lick around the head of his cock, then, and Jensen moans blissfully. “How- why are you-” Jensen stutters, unable to spill it.

“-sucking your cock?” Jared finishes for him, which sadly goes hand in hand with him letting Jensen's dick slip out of his mouth. “Believe it or not, but I had a vision.”

Jensen grins. “You had a vision?”

Jared's grin matches his own exactly when he answers, “Really. Touched the frame of the bed, boom – vision. Seeing myself waking you up with a blowjob. Gotta tell you, we look fucking hot together. So I thought, well – why not?”

At that, Jensen breaks into a loud, gleeful laugh. Sometimes, he still can't fully believe that this happened to him. “Isn't that called a self-fulfilling prophecy?” he asks teasingly.

“Shut up, I'm trying to get you off here,” Jared kisses the tip of Jensen's cock with a smirk before he sucks him back down.

And Jensen finds himself at the thought that their story may have been a self-fulfilling prophecy all along.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Author's note:**  
>  I think I never did more research for a fic than I did for this one. As a matter of fact, I've never been to New York, so I didn't know the subway system or Manhattan or Central Park or the Upper East Side, which led to a lot of poring over Google Street View and Wikipedia. And now I want to go to New York. I also started reading the New York Times website and I'm pretty sure I could find my way through the subway by now.  
> And if someone would track my searches on Google, they might also think I'm a borderline psycho, or how else should I explain searching for a stabbing injury that would be bloody but not deadly.  
> That being said, smallworld_inc's prompt was very inspiring and I had a lot of fun writing this – especially because of the honor to work with her again.
> 
>  
> 
> **Special thanks to:**
> 
> [vennstiel](http://vennstiel.livejournal.com/): My dear friend, my beta for life and my very own soulmate. Once again, what would I have done without you! Thanks for clearing your tight schedule to help me out and inspire me some more. Thanks for checking over all the things I still had wrong despite all the research I did. Without you, this story would've never ended up like it is right now, and I'm grateful for your totally necessary nitpicking. Also, you're awesome and I love you :)
> 
> [smallworld_inc](http://smallworld_inc.livejournal.com/): As fate would have it, I had the honor to work with one of the most talented and awesome artists in the whole Supernatural fandom - twice. After "Despicable Misha", our first project this year, written for the deancasbigbang, we ended up on the same team again – thank god! How could I not make this incredible prompt into a 35,000 words story, considering the gorgeous art you provided me with? How could I not write a story we completely agreed on in detail from day one, almost to a creepy extent? I love you, girl, and I would love to work with you again (which, in hindsight, I already did. *wink* *wink* *nudge* *nudge*).


End file.
